


I Keep Going Over the World We Knew (Over and Over)

by Mellacita



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Reincarnation, Reunions, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 15:35:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 53,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellacita/pseuds/Mellacita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Merlin Emrys is sent on a 'round-the-world assignment, he begins remembering a life of magic, dragons, and kings. To make matters worse, a strange woman starts stalking him along the way. And that's before he even meets Arthur Pendragon, whose answer to climate change is going to save the world. Because apparently just saving <i>Britain</i> won't be enough this time around.</p><p>Edit: An eagle-eyed reviewer pointed out some mistakes/things that need to be fixed about Brasil. Apologies and I will do my best to fix them up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Merlin Accidentally Lands a Sweet Assignment (Or Is It Destiny?)

****

BOOK I: IN WHICH MERLIN ACCIDENTALLY LANDS A SWEET ASSIGNMENT (OR IS IT HIS DESTINY?)

 

> "Creation.
> 
> Since humanity developed language, tales of creation have been intertwined with what often is called magic. Magic provided understanding for who we are and where we came from. New Zealand's North Island was once a giant fish, caught by Maui with a hook made from the jaw of his mother. The Dogon people of Mali believe humanity was created through the birth of twin _Nommos_ from the god Ama; eight thousand miles away, Navajo describe their own Hero Twins who rid the Fourth World of the monsters that plagued it so that humanity could thrive. The Abrahamic religions' creation story takes place over a week; physicists build large particle colliders to discover the secrets of the Big Bang. All of it is magic of a kind, and all of it had shaped these societies in ways that may never be fully explained. The mysteries are, in fact, a large part of the pull."
> 
> -Merlin Emrys, "Magic and Myth: How They Shape Civilizations." _National Geographic_, November 2010.

~*~

Life really was better after a toe-curling orgasm, Merlin Emrys thought to himself. He rolled onto his side, enjoying the feeling of sweat cooling against his overheated body.

The man next to him was tanned, and incredibly fit. A surfer, he'd said, when he introduced himself to Merlin at the pub the night before, although Merlin had already forgotten his name. He had had to stop himself from making a poor pun about riding some waves.

He'd bagged the man anyway. He was fair-haired and broad-chested, just Merlin's type. He was a bit too ripped, but whatever. Merlin now had a newfound appreciation for all the ways muscles could roll and clench and slide against his own skin.

He hadn't come to New Zealand to get laid, but it had turned out to be one hell of a fringe benefit.

The surfer arched his back into a long stretch, and Merlin couldn't help himself. He reached out a hand and ran it over his chest, his fingernails catching in the light smattering of hair, and grinned.

The surfer grinned back. "Mmmm," he said, then licked his tongue over his lips, as if daring Merlin to resist them. "Let's just stay in bed all day, what do you say?"

Merlin leaned in, and just as he was about to kiss him, he noticed the clock radio blinking the time.

Shit!" he shouted. "Holy motherfucking, buggering shit!"

His partner sat up, and Merlin cast a regretful look at the picture he made. There just wasn't enough time, and as nice as it had been to scratch an itch, Merlin knew he needed something—_someone_—else. If he could only find it. Him.

"Sorry," Merlin said. "I've got to run. Can't miss this meeting."

"But—"

"Order some breakfast and put it on my room or something, yeah? Thanks again. I had a lovely time." Merlin rifled through his suitcase, trying to find something, anything, that would acceptable to show up for a meeting with the director of New Zealand's national museum. He found a shirt that wasn't too wrinkled, and trousers that miraculously still held a crease. "No Iron" in this case was truth in advertising. God bless Levis and their trousers. He ducked into the loo to wash. He couldn't show up smelling like sex, even if it was the best sex he'd had since that time in the luggage room on the ferry to Dublin.

The surfer didn't move, only pouted from where he sat. "When will you be back?"

Merlin looked up from where he was hurriedly running a razor over his face and trying not to cut himself. "Dunno. Long day ahead. Full of important meetings. Might not be back until after midnight."

"Ah." The surfer wasn't so dumb after all. "So, thanks for the shag and all; be seeing you?"

Merlin sighed. "It was brilliant mate, thanks. But, you know..." he gestured into the air. "Stuff."

"Hmm. Someone else at home then?"

Merlin snorted. If only. "What makes you say that?"

"Couple things. First, you have that look. The 'I'm wildly in love with someone else but can't be with them, so you'll have to do' look."

Merlin reddened. "I do not, and besides—"

"Second, my name's Paul."

"Okay?" Well, at least Merlin could say he knew his name.

"So who's Arthur?"

Merlin shrugged. "Beats me. I don't know anyone named Arthur." The only Arthur he knew about was a dead, mythical monarch, and while Merlin may have counted himself a bit of an Arthurian buff, it wasn't like he fantasised about a guy who'd been dead for a millennium or so. If he had existed at all.

The surfer threw off the covers, then, and Merlin let his eyes wander a last time. Lord, but this Paul bloke was fit. He wasn't exactly what Merlin longed for, but he was close. Maybe he should invite him back later after all.

"So why were you calling me Arthur the entire time you were fucking me into the mattress?" Paul asked, buttoning up his jeans.

...on second thought, Merlin thought, this guy was mental. Best to avoid him for the rest of the trip.

"I wasn't," Merlin said with a laugh. "How could I? I said I don't know any Arthurs."

"Right," Paul said, throwing on his tee-shirt. "Well, when you see him, tell him I said he's a lucky bloke, but to keep a better eye on you."

With that, Paul stomped out of the hotel room without a backward glance, leaving Merlin half-shaved, half-dressed, late for his first research meeting, and confused as all hell.

_Arthur?_

* * *

Merlin was indeed late to his meeting with Amiri Baker, curator of the _Taonga Māori_ collection at _Te Papa Tongarewa_, but she was gracious enough to accept his profuse apologies referencing jetlag and getting lost in downtown Wellington.

"Don't worry," she said. "That's completely normal."

Merlin bobbed his head. "Completely normal, that's me," he said with false cheerfulness.

After their introduction, she began showing him around the collection. They exchanged small talk as they began their tour: Merlin's impressions of New Zealand, the weather when he left London, the long flight, previous articles Merlin had written that she'd obviously Googled.

Finally, as they admired a collection of intricate greenstone carvings, she turned to him. "So, Mr Emrys," she began.

"Please," Merlin said. "Just call me Merlin."

"Tell me a little more about your project then, Merlin. Your editor mentioned this was a piece on magic around the world, and while we would be the first to say _Aotearoa_ is a magical place, I'm not quite sure what the connection is."

Merlin shut off his tape recorder. It would hardly do to document just how rubbish his preparation for this trip had been.

"Magic's not really the right word, is it?" Merlin asked. "It's more about the mysticism found in all the great myths, and how those myths have gone on to shape civilisations."

"An ambitious topic, I think, even for _National Geographic_."

"Well, it _is_ a double length issue," Merlin replied with a crooked smile.

"Good thing, that." Amiri nodded, thoughtfully, as she guided them past a sculpture of a fishhook. "This one's made of whalebone," she pointed out. "The best are. What else did you read about New Zealand?"

Merlin leaned against one of the railings overlooking a collection of Maori ceremonial clothes. "Not as much as I should have done, Dr Baker."

"Call me Amiri," she said, pleasant. "Merlin."

"Well, Amiri. I, ah, watched all the extras on the Lord of the Rings DVDs? And I've seen the All-Blacks do a haka[.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/1975.html)"

She let out a great, loud laugh at that, as Merlin had hoped she would.

"More than that, I promise," he added. "But still not enough."

"It's a good thing you're very charming, Merlin, or I might be more offended," she said. "New Zealand's stories are as magical as any you'll find, and my colleagues and I look forward to them being written about with justice."

Merlin gave a wry grin. "Is that a vote of confidence or a warning?"

"Yes," Amiri said and laughed at Merlin's confusion. "Come, our senior research team is here and looking forward to meeting with you."

He spent the better part of the day shadowing different members of the research team and wandering the exhibits when he had a moment. The museum's scope was vast: contemporary art, living history, children's exhibits, a giant squid and a section devoted to precious metal. What stood out most to Merlin, though, was the way the art, the music, even the layout of the museum itself showed the reverence held for the land itself. In many parts of the world, the land was synonymous with magic. He tucked the thought away; it might help shape his article when the time came.

At the end of the day, he said goodbye to the staff before Amiri escorted him to the entrance. Sunlight spilled across the atrium as they walked to the doors, past the great crystal ball, and paused just outside. Merlin could smell salt from the harbour. It was hot; much hotter than it should be in New Zealand, even for this time of year. The weathermen on telly had been going on about it on the news that morning. Global warming at work, they'd joked.

Amiri drew a leather pouch from her pocket. "Before you go, we'd like you to have this as a souvenir of your visit." She extended the pouch, and Merlin took it from her, feeling the weight of it in his hand as he undid the drawstring.

Merlin drew out a _hei matau_ and watched as the fishhook swung from its fine cord.

"Keep it close," she said, "and it will keep you safe in your travels over water."

He touched a finger to the fine bone, felt the smoothness of it, and for a moment, Amiri, the museum, all of reality seemed to fade away.

 

> _The King is fallen and borne to Avalon. He heard the whispers in the trees; had heard them for an age of men already, an age of men spent keeping the kingdom ready for his return._
> 
> The King did not come back, and so Merlin went, instead. Over the sea, to the south, to the west, to the Holy Land and beyond, if that would be what it took for him to heal.
> 
> The King was gone, and Merlin wasn't permitted to follow.
> 
> The small boat was laden with supplies and a box that contained the very few things in this world that held any value for him. He felt the gravel and sand crunch beneath his boots, felt the saltwater of the sea and his own tears upon his face as he pushed the boat into the water. He did not look back at Albion, at the land that loved him and destroyed him. He didn't know if he'd ever return.

 

"Merlin," Amiri said. Merlin felt her hand on his shoulder, shaking him. "Are you all right?"

The scene faded away as if into mist, and Merlin blinked back into awareness. He was back outside the museum, the sunlight still blinding.

"Yes," he said, shaking his head. "Yes, I'm fine. Still a little jetlagged, I guess."

She offered an understanding smile. "Well, be sure to rest up, then, before the programme tomorrow night."

Merlin nodded. "I look forward to it. Thanks again."

He placed the fishhook back into the pouch, and the pouch into his rucksack. As he left, he glared at a dark-haired woman, probably a tourist, who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle he'd made.

 

* * *

 

Merlin Emrys lived an average, normal sort of life.

He lived in London, which was very normal for someone who, as far as he knew, was born and grew up in London.

He woke up in the morning and fed his cat. A freelance writer, he tended to work from home, but he still managed to get dressed most days.

He played cricket on the weekend and hung out at his favourite coffeeshop. He ran in charity races, got shitfaced with his mates, had relationships that didn't work out, and killed houseplants with stunning regularity.

He was, in a word, completely normal.

"That's two words," his best friend Renuka pointed out during their weekly coffee/debriefing. "And I'm not sure they mean what you think they mean."

Merlin drained his coffee—black, no sugar, nothing but pure twitch—and set down his cup with a glare. "I'm a _writer_," he said. "I know what words mean, Renu."

He'd met Renuka at university; they'd formed an instant bond over an arrogant lecturer they'd both hated. Merlin could never explain it, but they just clicked, somehow.

These days, she made it her hobby to ensure Merlin found domestic bliss with one of her numerous gay friends. "Of course you do, darling. Which is why I got a series of exceedingly angry texts from Stampy after your blind date, all of which, by the way, included the phrase: 'not normal.'"

Merlin scowled.

"In all capital letters, no less," Renu added. "Really. I'm not going to keep fixing you up if you keep creeping them out."

"How was I creeping them out? I was making conversation!"

"Merlin." Renu covered one of his hands with hers. "Not everyone shares your passion for old, dead monarchs, you know."

"They should," Merlin insisted. "It's our cultural _heritage_. How could they not want to know more about it?"

Renu rolled her eyes. "It's not _everyone's_ cultural heritage. Besides, at the first date stage, I'd say worry more about attraction and less about if a bloke can distinguish between the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate cycles."

Merlin pointed his finger. "Ha. See, _you_ know your Arthuriana. Stampy has no excuse."

"I only know it because it makes it so much easier to take the piss out of you, Merlin, and you know that's one of my life's great pleasures."

"Doesn't matter why. You still know it, thereby proving that you are better than him. If you had a cock I would date you and be done with it."

"If I had a cock, I'd fuck Karen Gillan and not worry about you."

"Thanks."

"Seriously though, I just want you to find someone. You're too lonely. King Arthur isn't going to keep you warm at night, you know."

"You say that at least six times a year," Merlin said with a wan smile.

"We'll just tick Stampy off the list and try someone else, shall we?"

Just then his mobile went off. "I need to take this one. It's the bloke from _National Geographic_," he explained with an apologetic look at Renu, and accepted the call.

Two hours later, Merlin's head was still reeling.

The call had been from Tom Malleore, the features editor at _National Geographic_. Merlin had done a few pieces for them, the last about six months back. Tom was in London from Washington for a few days, and asked Merlin to meet him.

"Here's the thing, Merlin," Tom said when Merlin sat down in his third coffee shop of the morning. Really, any more and he was going to be awake for days. "You know Geoff? Geoff Trefynwy?"

Merlin nodded. Of course he knew Geoff Trefynwy. Anyone who did any sort of travel or cultural writing in Britain knew about Geoff Trefynwy.

"Geoff proposed a story to us a few months back, and Ellen loved it. Accepted it based on the outline; designed the whole November book around it," Tom said.

Merlin nodded, his mind racing. Did they want him to do a sidebar? Be be a contributing writer?

"He called yesterday from Armenia. Bastard broke both his legs in a skiing accident. He's in traction and everything. Needs surgery. So he's not going to be able to write the piece."

"Bad luck," Merlin commented. He couldn't imagine having to wake up in a strange hospital, listening to doctors you couldn't understand. "You need a back-up feature or two then? I've been working on a few concepts."

"No," Tom interrupted. "Ellen's really sold on this idea. She wants a story about magic, mysticism, creation mythologies and the like for the November book. It was Geoff's query, but he agreed to hand it off for a 25% fee and a shot at cover when he's better."

Merlin frowned. "So, what do you need from me?"

"We want you to write it[.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/3910.html)"

"Me?" Merlin was stunned. He was hardly qualified to write about _magic_.

"Sure, you."

"Me?" Merlin repeated. "Shouldn't you find someone a little more knowledgeable? I'm hardly an expert."

"What about that stuff you wrote at university?"

"That was ten years ago!"

Tom continued as if he didn't hear him. "We'll send you a few places to do some research, and then you'll find a brilliant theme underpinning them all like you always do."

"I'm just not sure. Magic and myth around the world? That's a huge subject, man. I don't know if I could do it justice."

"Merlin," Tom pushed. "You didn't know anything about Vladivostok or corn before, either, and both of those were fantastic. You always have a fresh take on subjects like these."

"But—" Was a multiple-destination assignment really just going to fall into his lap like this?

"We'll send you Geoff's proposal. He had it pretty well sketched out. He'd already lined up some of his interviews and he had a ton of contacts."

Of course he did, Merlin thought. He was Geoff Trefynwy, superstar. "How long can I think about it?"

Tom drummed his fingers on the table. "Ellen is pretty edgy about this. Wants to know ASAP."

Merlin frowned.

"Would it help if I suggested you include something about your namesake?"

"What?"

"Merlin. You know, great sorcerer, King Arthur, all that jazz. If the piece is about magic and myths and how they shape civilisations, well, you have to get some Arthurian stuff in there. It's like, Britain's cultural history, isn't it?"

"Part of it, anyway," Merlin said absently. "Wait, what?"

A slow grin came over Merlin's face. He couldn't wait to quote that back to Renuka. "You know what, Tom? I don't need to think about it. Send the contracts over. I'll do it."

The market for freelancers was difficult at the best of times, and worse yet for those who still printed on antiquated things called paper. To be remembered and offered a cover story with _National Geographic_ was a professional coup.

But really, _magic_? It wasn't like he was going to be embedded in a military convoy or sailing Antarctica on a steam vessel. Going up Everest on a hovercraft. Something truly out of this world.

Still, it was enough cause for some celebration. He rang up Renu and Sean to meet him at their local that night.

"They're sending you all over the world so you can write a story on _magic?_" Sean asked over his beer. Sean had been his flatmate when Merlin had first moved to London after uni, and they'd stayed in touch since. Merlin was a better friend than a flatmate, anyway.

"That's right. _Magic, Mysticism and Myth: How They Tie Civilisations_. Or some shite. I'll see how it goes."

"I assume the tie-ing is metaphorical, or will you get to interview Derren Brown?" Renu asked.

Merlin rolled his eyes. "So literal-minded. It's not that sort of magic. It's, you know, the earth I think. All the ways people connect to it, and call it magic."

Sean lifted his hand to call for another round. "Mate. I'm not even going to pretend to understand that shite. I just want to know how it can possibly be fair that you're being sent around the world to unleash your inner pagan, and meanwhile, I'm filing papers and playing empty bars for living."

Merlin supposed he was right. It wasn't his first location assignment by a long shot, but even still, it was something reserved only for the top few in his profession. Maybe he'd finally arrived.

* * *

It happened again three days later in Hong Kong.

"It wouldn't be my life," Merlin complained over his mobile to Renuka, "if things actually worked out the first time." He stuck a finger in his other ear so he could hear her better.

"Merlin, you've rung me at half five in the morning on a bloody Saturday to whinge about missing a connecting flight?"

Merlin glanced at his watch, did some mental arithmetic. It was difficult, seeing as he seemed to have found his way one of the eight million street celebrations. "Er, oops?"

"Yeah, oops. Look, I feel very sorry for you, being stuck in Hong fucking Kong. It's very tragic, especially for Chinese New Year and therefore probably really boring with the billion people out celebrating. But I've got someone over and did I mention it's half five on a Saturday morning?"

"I take it you don't want to hear about the surfer I fucked in Wellington then?" Merlin stepped into a shop off the street.

"Let me guess. He was blond, about your height, nice, broad chest? I don't need to hear the story. Ring me when you broaden your horizons."

"Fine then. I'll email you instead."

"You better, you twat. Have fun."

"Cheers, love."

As Merlin disconnected the call, he found himself face to face with an aged woman; the shopkeeper, perhaps.

"Sorry," she said. "You must have this." She pressed a small charm, a keyfob, at Merlin. From it dangled a miniature version of the large paper dragons parading through the narrow streets. Its colours gleamed.

 

> _My dragon didn't look like this at all._

 

Merlin shook his head and looked down at the woman. She wore an expectant expression.

Merlin dug through his pocket for some notes he'd taken out at the airport, and handed a few to her before leaving the shop before he ended up with any more souvenirs he didn't need. Once back on the street, he looked down at the small dragon in his palm.

 

> _ How small you are, for such a great destiny._

 

* * *

 

To: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: I think I have a brain tumour or similar

Hiya,

On a scale of one to ten, how alarming is it to hallucinate anytime someone hands you something?

-M

\--

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
Re: I think I have a brain tumour or similar

Depends. Are they handing you drugs?

-R

PS: Drugs are bad, Merlin.  
PPS: Saw Sean at the pub. He says hello and wants you to leave a comment to his new track on his myspace.

 

* * *

 

It was three in the morning when Merlin arrived in New Delhi, his second official stop on his research tour. The day he'd spent in Hong Kong hadn't really counted.

After the incident with the dragon keyfob, he'd spent most of the evening trying to convince himself he wasn't actually going mad.

He'd had a period of time like this at university, too, when his mind had seemed too crowded and he'd concluded he didn't know himself very well.

He did know he was an orphan. He vaguely remembered how adults used to whisper among themselves and send him pitying glances. He knew he had parents, once. He held images in his mind of a pair of kind brown eyes, of hands rough from hard work and a proud smile. If he tried really hard, he could picture a bearded man, whittling toys from birch branches, but how could that be right? Toys came from shops.

It was one of many things that confused Merlin, where these stray memories came from.

He'd dealt with that in a typical university-student fashion, drinking too much and pretending nothing was wrong.

Oddly, the alcohol seemed to help most. Merlin found he actually thought more clearly with a couple of pints in him. He could concentrate then— on the billiards, on his friends who he felt he'd known much longer than he had, on the fresher he sucked off after the welcoming dinner (yes, every year. He made it a tradition).

Apparently, drinking the voices in your head into oblivion was alarming to flatmates and tutors, and so before finishing his degree Merlin was seeing a therapist regularly to find alcohol-free ways of concentrating. Eventually, he'd stopped noticing, and then they'd gone away all together.

Until now.

In between emailing Renuka and Sean[,](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/520.html) Merlin had also done serious damage to his hotel minibar. He really didn't want to get back into that pattern again. For one thing, his tolerance for anything stronger than beer had all but disappeared. Hopefully India would help him calm his mind, once he was settled at the ashram.

He hated arriving in a new place when it was dark out. He felt a little like he was missing one of his senses, that there were things going on around him that he could hear but not see, and it freaked him out a little.

He wound his way through the throngs of people in the airport, past the long lines of passengers waiting to check in, a collection of women in _sarees_, businessmen in suits, tourists in cotton linen, families with carts of baggage. The muggy air from outside the terminal seeped in through the constantly opening doors, and armed officials checked the tickets of those trying to get in.

Renuka once told him that travelling in India was intense for many people. "You won't get to sit back and observe there," she warned him. "Participation is required."

Merlin had been a little indignant. "I've been loads of places, you know. How much different can it be?"

After changing some money, he booked a taxi to take him directly to the ashram he would be visiting first. He saw what Renuka meant the moment he stepped out into the street, as drivers approached him, promising better fares, smoother rides. He kept walking until he found his booked car, and after loading his bag into the boot, he was off into the night.

Even at this hour, the roads were full of vehicles, cars and carts and brightly painted lorries, honking their horns as they passed each other at terrifyingly tight angles. During the worst times, Merlin played with the _hei matau_ around his neck, and hoped it offered safe passage over land as well.

When the taxi stopped once at a chokepoint, a mother holding a small child knocked on the car window, asking for money. It was still fairly dark outside, so Merlin couldn't see her well, but he had money and she didn't, so...

"Don't," the taxi driver said, when Merlin got out his wallet. The taxi started moving again, and Merlin made a mental note to find a local charity at some point during his time in India.

He'd seen poverty before; had gone on bloody _organised tours_ of slums in other places he'd travelled. He wondered what it was like for those who lived here, who watched as tech money fueled skyscrapers and condomimiums but millions more scratched out a living from the increasingly hostile land.

The sun was up when they reached the town surrounding the ashram; Merlin could see several men bowing in the _fajr_ prayer. Merlin paid the driver and walked to the front gates. He could hear the chanting from inside the main hall; dawn prayers of a different kind.

Geoff chose this ashram himself; it catered to Westerners with money and trendy spiritual hunger. He wondered if he should have gone more authentic; only what did that even mean? Merlin hadn't prayed since, well, he wasn't sure he could remember the last time he prayed. To anyone. Never mind the last time he meant it.

As he neared the gates, Merlin felt himself growing a little jittery. What was he thinking? Dammit, he liked meat. And he was pretty sure his gangly body wasn't made to press itself into complicated poses. And he was crap at meditation, and this ashram might not even be a real ashram and here he was, celebrating it in a magazine article.

Before he could get too carried away, though, he was greeted at the gates by a dark-haired woman. A Westerner, he assumed. She walked toward him in bare feet, barely making a sound against the cool, dusty tiles of the entryway. As she approached, he felt a flash of recognition, like he should know her.

"_Namaste_," she greeted him with a strange smile. "You must be Merlin."

Merlin switched his bag to his other hand so he could take her hand in his. "That's me," he said.

"I'm assigned to greeter duty this week," she said, but she didn't offer her name. Her accent sounded Cornish, perhaps, but muted as well, like she'd been away from home a long time. "Welcome to Śānti." She led him into the ashram, and told him to remove his shoes.

"They're already underway this morning," she told him, "but we know how the airport is. I'll show you to your room, and then you can join us."

Merlin's room was utilitarian, but comfortable, and it seemed they'd assigned him a room of his own. His guide gave him a few minutes to set his things aside and visit the loo, and soon they were on their way to the hall.

"Here we are," she said. "You can grab a cushion at the back, and then just follow along as best you can."

"But—" Merlin began.

"Don't worry. None of us had any idea what we were doing when we first got here." She smiled at him.

"Thanks. Sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

The woman's smile faded away, and she looked at Merlin so intensely that he had to fight the urge to look away.

"My name is Morgana," she said, watching him intently.

"Morgana," Merlin said, turning the name over on his tongue. "That's... an usual name. Parents a fan of King Arthur?"

Morgana smirked. "Something like that, yes. Yours too, I suppose?"

Merlin smiled weakly. "Something like that," he echoed.

In truth, Merlin had no idea why his parents had chosen his name. They'd died before Merlin was even old enough to remember them.

"Anyway, Merlin, I'm sure we'll speak again during your time here," Morgana said. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

"Wait," Merlin said, and Morgana turned around, expectantly.

"Do you think," and Merlin knew he was crazy, it was happening again. "I mean, is it possible—that we've met before?"

Morgana laughed, a musical, delighted sound. "Not in this life," she said. "But you never know. Perhaps in a previous one? I mean, consider where we are," she said lightly.

Bemused, Merlin watched her leave, then went to join the morning prayers.

 

* * *

 

Hinduism, Merlin found, was a complete gold mine when it came to magic and myth. In a fit of exuberance, he said as much to Ashok, the man who ran the ashram's office.

"Indeed," Ashok said. He wore short sleeves and a tie, and was busy filing registration forms when Merlin had stopped by to give his now-customary hello on the sixth day. "It was good of God to create this perfect religion, find a billion people to follow it, and create temples and roads and aeroplanes and magazines, all so that you could come here to learn about it."

"I, er, just meant," Merlin stammered, but he couldn't find anything to say.

"Not that we're not glad you're here, Merlin," Ashok added. "I'm a bit busy at the moment, though."

"Oh. Sorry."

"You're going to miss your lecture if you spend all your time questioning me. I assure you, Swami has much more to offer your research than I do."

When Merlin wasn't participating in chants and prayers, he spent a lot of time in the ashram's library. He was particularly interested in the _vedas_, sacred texts that in addition to many other mysteries, spoke of different types of magic.

He struck up conversations with anyone who would speak with him and tolerate his endless questions. He also attended as many of the talks as he could. The most memorable was doubtlessly the one on _Tantra_, but not for any reason Merlin could include in his story.

It was a strange tableau, with so many people sat wide-eyed around Swami as he expounded on _Tantra_ and the connection the rituals afforded between those who practised it.

I'm being paid to listen to a lecture on sex magic, Merlin thought. No way could Sean ever find out about this. Merlin would never hear the end of the Sting and Trudi jokes.

It was hot in the hall, and the air was close with incense and the body heat and breath of the hundred men and women sat cross-legged and rapt with attention.

Merlin felt his eyelids start to fall. All the four a.m. wake up bells were building up to a hell of a sleep debt.

"Tantrism is a quest for spiritual perfection and magical power. Its purpose is to achieve complete control of oneself, and of all the forces of nature, in order to attain union with the cosmos and with the divine."

 

> _Come on, Merlin. You can do it. Hold off a little longer._

 

He heard the voice as if it were across the hall, and only a whisper by the time it reached him.

"Although popularly equated with _Tantra_ in its entirety in the West, sexual rites are not the focus," Swami Mandlik continued. "Tantra is far more than physical union between two people in pursuit of fleeting pleasure."

> _He would surely die if this kept up much longer._
> 
> It felt like they'd been fucking for hours, although Merlin knew that could not be true. The battle was barely over; the screams of the dying could still be heard from the encampment where they had returned, victorious and filthy and desperate to be sure each was still alive.
> 
> At first, they'd been forceful, slamming into each other, rolling this way and that on the furs that covered the King's bed. They were spattered with their enemies' blood, and the metallic taste of magic lay heavily in the air. New blood, their own, dotted up here and there, where a fingernail scratched in possessiveness, or where sharp teeth bit down in ownership.
> 
> Still they'd not come.
> 
> The bloodlust was short-lived, as it always was in the wake of a great battle. Soon, they were rocking against each other, breathless and exhausted, minute thrusts against each other and answering groans in the torchlight.
> 
> They moved together for an eternity, an eternity that only spanned a few candlemarks at most, but it might have been a thousand years for all the ways it spun out and back in.
> 
> Their desperation quieted, and just as Merlin thought he couldn't do it, he couldn't take anymore, he needed the _slide_, the friction, the emptiness following release, a hand reached down to stay his from where it moved against his own cock.
> 
> "Come on, Merlin. Just a little longer."
> 
> He drew his hand away, his moan of frustration nothing more than a parting of his lips. He opened his eyes to another set of eyes, fixed on his, unblinking, and he felt his limbs, unmoving paralysed. There was only these eyes, and this mouth, and this man, and as they lay together, unmoving now after hours of fight and push and pull, Merlin wondered that his body was able to contain it all, wondered if the shimmering he felt in his toes and his fingers and the tips of his ears meant that he was dissolving, turning into light, no physical form left that belonged only to him...

 

"Merlin."

Merlin opened his eyes with a gasp and looked around him. The hall was nearly empty, now, and Morgana was leaning down with a hand on his shoulder.

"I, um, what?" Merlin said. He could feel sweat rolling down his back in beads beneath the cotton of his shirt.

"Where is everyone?"

Morgana stood, gesturing to the still empty room. She looked intrigued. "Talk finished twenty minutes ago."

Merlin felt his face flush with embarrassment. Had he just given the entire ashram a show?

Morgana offered him some water, her eyes still keen. "Relax. Most people will spend weeks or months here and not be able to reach the deeper meditative states. When it happens, we just leave you to it and try not to be too jealous."

"I, just, I mean..." Merlin couldn't manage to collect his thoughts. "It was so weird."

Morgana flopped down next to him on the floor. "Tell me about it," she said.

Merlin shook his head. "I'm not sure I could begin to explain it to a therapist, never mind a stranger." It had been so real, but he'd never been able to see the man's face clearly.

"Ah," she said. "But we're not strangers. We knew each other in a past life, remember?"

Merlin smiled. "Even still."

"Fair enough. I understand you'll be leaving in the morning."

Merlin nodded. "It's been quite the experience, but I've several more stops to make."

"And more magic to discover."

"Yeah. More magic to learn about."

"Well. I look forward to reading your article. There is so much about magic that's been forgotten over time, isn't there?"

"I'm not sure I'm in a position to say, just yet. I'm just getting started."

"There is. The magic of the earth itself is the same wherever you go. It just manifests in different ways."

"You seem to know a lot about it."

"I've seen my share." She rose up from the floor, gracefully. "Good luck on your travels. Maybe we'll meet again."

Merlin didn't see Morgana before he left the ashram in the stillness of early morning, but later, when he sat in contemplation at the Lotus temple, or navigated narrow rows of homes in Moradabad, he'd thought he'd seen her from the corner of his eye.

 

* * *

 

The problem with long flights, Merlin thought, were those long moments in crowded terminals with a dead laptop battery, or the interminable taxi from gate to runway during which no electronic devices were permitted. Far too much time for questions to gnaw away at you.

Merlin wondered again at the strange woman. Morgana. Her name was familiar on his tongue. He was sure he recognised her, no matter what she said. There had been a woman at university she reminded him of; he'd never met her, but a few times he'd felt her watching him.

Strange that she should be called Morgana, and he Merlin. Merlin had no idea if his parents had been fascinated by Arthurian legends (surely they must have been?), but Merlin himself was, from the time he was very small. He'd done essays on them for school; studied medieval literature at university.

Even his first job with the British Tourist Authority had involved Arthurian legends. He'd helped write material for the brochures so much that eventually they started giving him little writing assignments as well. His "Brief Guide to Arthurian Britain" was their most-requested publication.

One night, not long after leaving the Tourist Authority for _Time Out_, Renuka took him out for dinner, ostensibly to congratulate him on his new job but more to rhapsodise about Love of Her Life Number Eight, who worked for a rival barrister. This apparently necessitated stealth meetings in hotel toilets or similar.

"Are you sure he's not, I don't know, mafia or something?" Merlin had asked.

Renu had rolled her eyes before draining her glass of cabernet. "If he were I am sure our tickets to U2 next weekend would be far superior."

"I'm just looking out for you, you know," he had said.

"I know. But it's so exciting, being secret like this. We're like Romeo and Juliet. Or Lancelot and Guinevere," she had enthused.

Merlin had been half out of his seat, ready to tell her off, when he had realised that "you didn't know them like I knew them!" made no sense, even to him.

Instead, he had remained in his seat and ordered an espresso.

Merlin didn't turn to drink as often after university, preferring to simply unload on his cat. Gaius was twice as helpful as any therapist he'd seen, for the cost of kibble and occasional visits to the vet's.

 

* * *

 

To: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Update

Renu,

Sorry I missed you when you phoned. My blackberry didn't work at the ashram. I'm on my way to Tel Aviv. In-flight wifi is brilliant.

You were totally right about India. Intense. I'll tell you more later.

How's Gaius? I hope he's behaving himself. Did I leave enough food? I miss him.

\--

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Update

I'm always right.

Gaius is fine. He misses you too. You alright? Laying off the drugs, I hope?

Seriously, though, if it's as bad as it was back at uni, you need to say something. I can have Dr. Beckett call in something for you.

Be safe.

\--

To: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Re: Update

I'm fine. Travel really messes up your sleep schedule, that's all.

 

* * *

 

Merlin stood before the Western Wall, the only part of ancient Jerusalem's temple still standing after it was pulled down by the Romans. Some called it the Wailing Wall, for those who came to lament for everything lost, to pray. Others called it _Al-Burāq_, for the winged horse that carried the prophet from Mecca to Jersusalem.

Merlin called it whatever the person he was with wanted it to be called. It wasn't his to name.

One of Merlin's least favourite things about his job was that he always felt like an intruder, albeit one met with varying levels of welcome. He asked stupid questions. He trod on toes. He went places he didn't belong; in exchange for the imposition, he paid attention, and told the story as well as he could. And he tried to tip well.

Still, he was a fraud stood before the wall. He did not believe in any of the religions whose followers had lived and lost and fought and died here, yet here he was in Jerusalem, trying to find a way to connect them all into his story about legend, magic, and belief.

Geoff's outline had been so glib, so simple.

The area was crowded, full of those making pilgrimage in the late afternoon sun. Some read from the Torah. Others sang. Merlin stood, watching them all, feeling like an invader.

"Hello, Merlin."

Merlin started. Who could he possibly know in Jerusalem? He'd yet to have any of his interviews and meetings. He'd only just checked into his hotel. Adam, his photographer on this stop, was visiting with some of his cousins. Merlin should have been completely anonymous.

He turned around slowly to find Morgana standing with him.

"Morgana," he said, stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"Mourning," she said.

Merlin boggled. "Um. Seriously?"

"What?" Morgana looked at him with wide eyes.

Merlin didn't even know where to begin. Morgana was resplendent in a long, modest dress, and a scarf covering most of her hair, but...

"This is the men's side," he stammered. Merlin already knew he shouldn't be here at all, and what if they thought she was with him and they caused an international, interfaith incident?

"They don't seem to mind," Morgana said, gesturing to the men on Merlin's either side. Neither made any note of Morgana; they appeared deep in prayer or contemplation, hands and faces pressed to the large, worn stones.

"I don't understand," Merlin said. He kept his voice to a whisper, hoping it might pass for praying. He felt dizzy, like no part of his life made any more sense at all. "How can you be here?"

"I took a plane," Morgana said.

Merlin darted his eyes around. Of course, he wasn't praying, he was hallucinating, and he was pretty sure that pretending to pray whilst behaving inappropriately at this holiest of places was pretty high on the list of things a person could be smited for. Or at least arrested.

"You know what I mean. I remember, you know. You were at university with me but you never spoke to me. And then, you were at the museum in New Zealand. Then the ashram. Why are you following me? Who are you?"

"Let's not do this here," Morgana said.

"Oh, sure. Now you're the voice of respect. You're the one who approached _me_," Merlin said.

"Yes. You've been difficult to trace here. Too much interference."

"…interference."

"There's a lot going on here."

"What are you even talking about?"

"This is where the Old Religions made room for the first of the New, and the others that followed."

"What does that even mean?"

"If you haven't figured it out after a while, I'll tell you."

"Great. I take it that means I will have to see you again at some awkward and alarming point in the future?"

Morgana laughed out loud, which made Merlin look around, frantic that they were about to be discovered. He tried to pull at her elbow, to guide them away from the wall, when Morgana slid a carefully folded piece of paper into the stones.

"What are you doing?" Merlin asked. "I don't think you're supposed to be doing that."

"What? Seems to be the done thing here. Pretty sure that guy over there isn't Jewish, and he just put one in."

Merlin scowled. "You can't know that."

"The crucifix rather gives it away."

"So you're a Catholic who studies Hinduism and Buddhism and likes to pray at Jewish holy places?"

Morgana shrugged. "It's all part of a whole."

"The whole what?"

"Whatever you think the largest measure of humanity is. The world? The universe? Spacetime? No matter where you go or what you believe, it's all from the same place inside a person, isn't it?"

Merlin wanted to pull on his hair. "Congratulations. You've solved every human conflict ever! Why don't you go collect your Nobel and share your insight on high. I'm sure no one will think you're insane."

"Says the man seeing a person no one else can see."

"Last time. Who _are_ you?"

"I told you before. My name is Morgana, and I knew you in another life."

Merlin threw up his hands. "What does that _mean_? This is it, isn't it? I'm gone mental. They'll be sectioning me before I even get to file my article."

"You're not losing your mind, Merlin."

"I'm not."

"No. You're finding it."

"Finding it." Merlin had a mental image of his mind popping out from behind the wall, found at last. Of all the places for it to have been hiding. He suppressed hysterical laughter.

"And it's about time, too. He's back."

Merlin felt his gut clench. It felt like longing. "Who's back?"

Morgana only smiled. "What are you writing, there?" she said, nodding to Merlin's paper. "I thought we weren't supposed to be doing that."

"Who says I was going to leave it?" Merlin retorted. "And who's back?"

"Write your prayer, Merlin. The gods will hear it, whatever name you use for them."

"I don't believe in any gods."

"You should. They believe in you."

Merlin looked back down at his paper, bewildered. He didn't remember writing anything, but there, plain as day in his own hand, were carefully inked letters.

When he looked up to ask Morgana about it, she was gone. Only her paper, folded and pressed into the spaces in the limestone, told Merlin he hadn't imagined the whole thing.

Without thinking, he pulled her paper from the wall, ignoring the looks from the men around him. His fingers shaking, he unfolded it. He could hear Morgana's voice in his mind.

 

> _This is only the beginning._

 

Merlin rolled it back up and placed it back in the wall. He crossed himself for verisimilitude after, a motion that felt so wrong that he was sure he'd done it backward, and he was going to get struck by lightning any minute…

… he wasn't, though. He left the wall, the market, the centre and returned to his hotel. Once there, he found the paper still in his pocket.

_Arthur._

* * *

  
If Merlin were to write a top ten list of least favourite airports, Charles de Gaulle would surely be near the top. It was confusing; he'd ended up going through passport control three times during his last layover simply because he'd had no idea where he was going.

The worst was connecting through Paris. You sat in the artificial light of the terminal, knowing that you could just hop on the RER-B and be within spitting distance of gastronomic delight, but instead you sat and ate airport food. Eating airport food in Paris was surely a circle of hell.

Going through Paris was rather a roundabout way to get to Mali from Israel, but Air France was one of the only airlines that flew there, so connecting in Paris it was. Merlin wished he'd had the foresight to ask the travel agency to book him a few days here; he'd have been willing to pay for it himself just to get a bit of a break from all the hurry up and wait he'd be through on his trip so far.

As fate would have it, Merlin got his wish when, three hours into his layover, the air traffic controllers went on strike.

He fought his way through the disgruntled passengers in the terminal to queue at the Air France counter to find out his options. Air France only flew to Bamako twice per week; even if the strike were called off within a day; he'd have three days in France.

And as a bonus, he wouldn't have to pay for it himself.

The queue moved unbearably slowly, so Merlin passed the time on his BlackBerry, compiling thoughts for his article and not thinking at all about his increasingly alarming visions. He was just tired, that was all. Nothing that a pint, twelve hours of sleep, and decent fuck wouldn't cure.

Speaking of decent fucks, the guy in front of him in the queue had a gorgeous arse. He took a moment to type out a text to Renuka to that effect, which she quickly replied to with a text that read: _pix or it didn't happen_.

Merlin rolled his eyes. He wasn't _that_ bored.

Then again, it was a magnificent arse. Slate grey trousers, perfectly pressed. Muscular, pert, but not too wide. Gorgeous, really. It would be a shame to not document it. If Merlin could just angle his BlackBerry like so, and casually press the button...

_click_.

...and remember to turn off the sound, then he could go unnoticed.

Bollocks.

The man in front of his turned around and glared. He was about Merlin's height, with golden blond hair, a bit of stubble around his jaw, and really blue eyes. Exactly Merlin's type, and he had to suppress the urge to document the front as well.

"Christ. I know I'm famous but could you at least pretend to respect my privacy?" the man said with a sneer.

"Uh...my finger slipped, mate. It's just a snap of the floor. Look."

Merlin thumbed through the photos stored in his memory, finding one of a blurry nothing that he had accidentally snapped ages ago. He never went through and deleted things, and for once his lack of organisational abilities was paying off.

The man looked at the photo, shot Merlin a suspicious look, and turned back to face forward.

One he had his back turned, Merlin quickly sent the photo of the guy's arse to Renuka.

_very nice_, she texted back. _how's the front?_

_even better_. Merlin thumbed in. _except for the part where he thinks he's famous and is a raging dickhead_.

_always the way, innit?_

It clearly was the way, when, a half an hour later, Merlin was finally next in the queue, but had to wait while the hot guy with the magnificent arse and questionable attitude spent fifteen minutes shouting at the airline representative, who was doing his best to placate the man.

"No. Coach class on Friday is not acceptable. I have to be in Copenhagen by tomorrow morning for a number of very important meetings."

"Please wait, sir," the frazzled attendant said, tapping at his keyboard.

The man huffed and drummed his fingers on the handle of his rollaboard suitcase.

"Sorry, sir. Could you spell the name for me again?"

"P-E-N-D-R-A-G-O-N. Pendragon."

Merlin raised an eyebrow. Now _there_ was a name you didn't hear very often.

"Ah, yes, Monsieur Pendragon. First name Artur?"

"Arthur." Merlin shivered at the name.

"Yes, Artur."

"ARTHUR. With an "H", thank you!" By now, Arthur Pendragon was attracting stares from the other passengers.

_Arthur Pendragon_? Now there was a guy who was predestined to have a complex. Merlin leaned forward. "I think it's just his accent, my friend."

Arthur Pendragon whirled around. "What?"

Merlin gestured to the representative. "He's French. They don't have the "th" sound."

"I'm sorry, but...do I know you?"

"No. I'm Merlin," Merlin said, holding out his hand with a cheeky grin.

Arthur Pendragon wasn't sold, since he didn't accept the offered hand. "Right. So I don't know you."

"No."

"Yet you called me "friend," he stated.

"Yeah, well, it was either that or tell you off."

"Well, then you made a wise choice, Merlin, did you say your name was?"

"Excuse me, Mr Pendragon?" the representative started, hesitantly. "I have retrieved your reservation."

"Hang on a second," Arthur said, then turned his attention back to Merlin. "Now that we've established that I don't know you, and you don't want to tell me off, would you kindly fuck off back to your place in the queue?"

Merlin laughed in his face. "As your highness commands," he said, sketching a mocking bow.

Merlin returned to his place in the queue and exchanged looks with the passenger behind him. "Wanker," Merlin muttered, and the woman laughed. Apparently such terms transcended language barriers.

Even still, it wouldn't hurt to get another photo of Arthur Pendragon's arse. Merlin lifted up his BlackBerry and clicked.

 

* * *

 

The magazine put him up in the Charles de Gaulle Hilton, just in case the strike lifted and he could beat everyone else to the airport. Still, it didn't stop him from catching the RER-B into Paris after he checked in.

Merlin had been to Paris many times, on his own or with friends for the weekend, so he bypassed the usual sights and made his way to the _Bibliothèque Nationale de France_, where the papers from the old science academies were kept. Once upon a time, alchemy had been considered a legitimate science, and Merlin thought he might be able to include it in his research.

After the library, Merlin walked through the Latin Quarter, stopping for a café crème and pain au chocolat along the way. In a used bookshop, he found battered copies of _Estoire de Merlin_ and _Mort Artu_, editions that looked to be from the 1960s judging by the strange, Pompidou-esque illustrations on their covers. They would make amusing additions to his collection, he thought as he handed some euro to the bored-looking shopgirl.

As he went through his day, he pretended that he wasn't frequently looking over his shoulder for Morgana.

He ate dinner on his own, Moroccan near the Bastille. Full of couscous, almond pastry and wine, he splurged on a taxi to take him back to his hotel. As he sat against the leather seat of the taxi and listened to the French radio (he could make out about half of the discussion, which was no better or worse than the last time he'd been here), he realised he hadn't had a single strange vision or fit the entire day.

He decided against sending Renu a text to that effect. She'd surely take it the wrong way.

Merlin tried to work on his notes when he got back from dinner, but the silence of the room made it too easy for his thoughts to stray to strange visions and potential stalkers. He brought his laptop down to the hotel bar, instead, and co-opted a table for his notes, books, computer and BlackBerry.

He was well into his second Scotch, and starting to feel it, when he received an email from one of the contributing writers. Even with his many stops, there was no way Merlin could cover it all himself. He would rely heavily on local contributors from Scandanavia, Central Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, even America, to ensure his article was as encompassing as possible. Merlin had a stop of his own planned in the States; Sedona, it was called, but that wouldn't be until his second trip. After Mali, provided Air France ever cooperated, he'd be going back to London for a bit before setting off for the Americas.

He was just debating whether to have a third drink (after all, it was because it was a decent Scotch, not because he was having visions and encounters with strange mirages) when someone must have read his mind, because someone set a glass down on the only part of the table not covered with papers, notes, or electronica.

Merlin only saw the hand, at first; blunt fingernails, wide palms, well-manicured. The hand was attached to a forearm peeking out of rolled up sleeves, and the arm was attached to Arthur Pendragon, the dickhead from the airport. Whose arse was captured for posterity on Merlin's BlackBerry.

"Ardbeg. Much better than that swill you're having," Arthur said by way of greeting.

"Uh, thanks?" Merlin didn't move to take it.

"It's a fine Scotch. Islay, single malt," Arthur continued, smirking.

"Well, if you like it so much, perhaps you should be alone with it."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Honestly, you try to make a nice gesture..." He shrugged. "I already have one," he said, gesturing with his other hand, which held a glass. "This one's for you."

"For me?"

"Yes. I...was in a bad mood earlier, at the airport."

"Okay?" Merlin said.

Arthur looked distinctly uncomfortable, like a small child being forced by his mother to apologise for shoplifting sweets. "It was unfair of me to go off on you like that. You don't even know who I am, do you?"

Merlin frowned. "Sorry, no."

"Once I realised that, I saw there was no way you'd be taking photos of my arse for the tabloids or something. I'm sorry I jumped on you."

Merlin's eyes ducked guiltily over to his BlackBerry. Arthur didn't seem to notice.

"So...mind if I join you?" Arthur said.

This was very strange, Merlin thought to himself. It wasn't lost on him that this bloke was called Arthur Pendragon, and he was very much Merlin's type, and for some reason, Arthurian references were following Merlin during this magical research trip. It was bizarre.

What the hell, Merlin decided. Nice arse, apparently given to occasional moments of reflection, and able to admit a mistake. He'd shared a drink with worse. He'd shared a drink with worse _that week._

"Be my guest," Merlin said, sweeping aside some notes. Arthur swung out the chair and sat himself down in it like he owned the place. He was still in those slate grey trousers, and the rolled up sleeves of his tailored, French-cuffed shirt revealed strong, sinewy muscles. His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, and a few hairs peeked out from the opening. He had the bearing of an aristocrat, or at least someone quite accustomed to be catered to.

"So, Merlin, was it?" Arthur said, taking a measured sip of his whisky. "What strange set of circumstances led you to Paris at precisely the perfect moment to get on my last nerve?"

Merlin gaped.

"I have since regained several of my nerves, so feel free to be as interfering as you like, now."

Merlin had to laugh in spite of himself. This guy had balls, and Merlin hoped that if he played his cards right, he might see them for himself.

"You're the one interfering with _me_ now, you know," Merlin pointed out, but offered his hand anyway. "Merlin Emrys," he said.

Arthur took his hand. His skin was soft, and his grip firm. Merlin had to suppress a shiver at the touch.

"Arthur Pendragon," Arthur said. "Although I suppose you know that from hearing me shout at the gate agent."

Merlin shrugged. "It's always nice to get it from the horse's mouth," he said. "Not that you're a horse, or resemble a horse in anyway, or..." His mental filter engaged just in time to prevent him from adding "hung like a horse" just in the hopes Arthur would want to prove him wrong.

"Uh, thanks? Anyway, here," Arthur said, passing the glass of Scotch to Merlin. Merlin accepted, and saluted Arthur with it before taking a sip.

 

> _He didn't want him to drink it. He was shouting, telling Merlin no. A different King was there, too, narrow-eyed distrust, and Bayard had his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to run Merlin through for his temerity..._

 

Merlin snapped back to reality, gasping and choking. Arthur was pounding him on the back, in between his shoulder blades.

"Hey, take it easy," Arthur said. "That's the good stuff, there. You can't just gulp it down."

Merlin wiped his face with his fingers. "Sorry. Down the wrong tube, as my mum used to say."

Arthur had stopped pounding, but not removed his hand. It pressed warmly through Merlin's tee-shirt, and for all that they were in a public place, Merlin half hoped Arthur's hand would drift lower, find the hem, slip up underneath to press warm skin to warm skin...

Merlin caught Arthur's eye then, and for a moment they stared at each other until Arthur slowly drew his hand back. He saw Arthur give a brief shake of his head.

"Sorry," Arthur said. "Just had a weird sense of déjà vu."

"It's okay," Merlin said, hoarsely.

"Right. So, as I was asking, Merlin. What brings you to Paris?"

"Ah, I'm on my way to Mali," Merlin said. "That's in West Africa."

"I know where Mali is," Arthur said, looking very put-upon.

"Sorry. Not everyone does. Anyway, yeah. I'm a writer. I'm on a research trip."

"What are you writing about?"

"Magic and myth around the world. It's for _National Geographic_."

Arthur looked moderately impressed. "Huh. So it's an assignment, this myth and magic stuff?"

"Er, yeah, what else would it be?"

"Dunno," Arthur said, leaning back in his seat. "Blog? Vanity press?"

"Tough to eat off what a blog pays, mate," Merlin said. "Not that I expect that's an issue for you." Merlin tempered that with a wink.

"Not really, no." Arthur looked slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, myth and magic. Sounds... interesting?"

"Is that a question?"

"Well, it explains the books at any rate," Arthur said, nodding down at the copies of _Mort Artu_ and _Estoire de Merlin_ sitting on his table. "I _was_ wondering."

Merlin flushed. "Yes. Well, Arthurian Britain is one of the myths I'll cover. Not in too much depth, it's already sort of a dominating myth. Gotta give the other guys a chance, too."

"Still, it's kind of funny. Arthur and Merlin, and here we are...Arthur and Merlin. Funny little world."

"Yeah. Almost like destiny," Merlin said with a flirty grin, but he had to wonder. He still had a slip of paper in his wallet with this man's name on. Arthur was a common enough name, but it was still sort of odd.

"I don't believe in destiny, just coincidence," Arthur said. "I'm a man of science."

Arthur held Merlin's stare for a long moment, until Merlin had to look away.

"But coincidences can be fun, too," Arthur added.

Merlin couldn't think of anything to say, so he finally settled on the obvious. "So, Arthur, what brings _you_ to Paris?"

"I'm on my way back from Beijing. Was supposed to be in Copenhagen by now, but Air France bollocksed that up."

"What's in Copenhagen?"

"Huh? Oh, just work. Meetings."

"What do you do?"

Arthur looked at him. "You really don't know?"

Merlin shook his head. "Nope. Sorry."

Arthur smiled at that. "Don't be. It's kind of nice. Anyway, I run a company that creates innovative solutions for climate change."

"Climate change."

"Yeah, you know. Global warming. Fossil fuel dependence. Amsterdam flooding, Kilimanjaro's snows melting, March of the Penguins...impending global disaster?"

"Yeah, I know what climate change is. I buy my carbon offsets. Just...didn't know people could get famous off it."

Arthur shrugged. "I'd rather be effective than famous, but still, famous is a relative word."

"I wouldn't know." Merlin had written for some prestigious publications in the past few years, but no one was ever going to know him by a single name, or anything.

"Not a celebrated writer, then? No Pulitzers on your mantle?"

"No mantle. Just a cooker. I do okay, but travel and culture writing never won anyone any fame."

"What about Eric Newby?"

"You read Eric Newby?" Merlin must have sounded incredulous, because Arthur looked more than a little offended.

"I spend a lot of time on planes," Arthur said.

"Me too."

They drank together in companionable silence for a while, but Merlin's mind lingered on his strange vision when Arthur put the glass into his hand.

"What was in Beijing?" Merlin asked, finally, to break the silence.

"Pollution," Arthur said. "Lots and lots of pollution. Also, there was a wall, and some duck."

Merlin laughed, a little louder than he might have done had he not had that last drink, which was definitely stronger than beer. "Aren't we the unimpressed tourist?"

"Just making a joke, mate. I enjoyed Beijing very much."

"Yeah, so did I," Merlin said, without thinking. Only...he'd never actually been to Beijing. Had he?

"You've been?"

"Yeah," Merlin said, and now that he thought about it, he could see the Forbidden City and its imperial court in his mind as if he had been right there, had been part of it. He drained the last of his drink in one gulp, and debated getting another. "Not recently," he improvised, "although I was just in Hong Kong."

"Hong Kong's different, but still cool."

"Yeah."

"Anyway, it's getting late," Arthur said, with a stretch. "I should, you know, turn in."

"Yeah," Merlin said ruefully. "Me too." When he stood up, he swayed, and Arthur caught his arm to steady him.

"Easy there," Arthur said. "You must be quite the lightweight."

Merlin giggled, then covered his mouth in mortification. "I'm not very good with liquor," he said. "I can handle beer, but yeah, you know. Liquor. Huh."

Arthur rolled his eyes while Merlin tried to collect his stuff, mostly scattering it around the table even worse. He took over, gathering up Merlin's notes and books into his rucksack. He slung it over his own shoulder, shut Merlin's laptop with a click and clasped it to his chest. Finally, he slung his free arm under Merlin's. "All right then, you lush. Let's get you to your room."

"I can do it!" Merlin protested, before nearly braining himself on a brass rail.

"Obviously," Arthur said, leading him to the lifts. "Now, which floor?"

"Nine."

Arthur pressed the button while Merlin leaned in against him. He wasn't that drunk, and he probably could manage this on his own, but then, Arthur was warm and his muscles bunched so wonderfully under his thin shirt and vest, and he smelled like cologne and whisky and...

"Merlin!" Arthur said, shaking him. "Don't fall asleep. I need to know which is your room."

"You want to come to my room?"

Arthur arched a brow. "I bought you those last drinks. It's only right that I see you safely in your bed. Now, which is your room?"

"912," Merlin said, digging in his pockets for the key card. Arthur took it from him and led Merlin down the hall.

"So, here we are. Think you can manage to get into bed on your own?"

"I could manage, but I don't know if I want to. On my own I mean," Merlin looked at Arthur through his eyelashes, and let the tip of his tongue peek out of his mouth.

Arthur hesitated, his eyes flicking to the bed just past the open door. "Another time, maybe," he finally said.

Merlin pouted, and slid out from under Arthur's supporting arm. "Right. Well, thanks again for the drink. Hope you get to Denmark."

"Yeah. Have fun in Mali. Don't harass too many other passengers." Arthur looked back over his shoulder once toward Merlin, and Merlin had to bite his lip to keep from calling him back.

* * *

The strike was called off early in the morning; by the time Merlin asked for Arthur at the front desk, he'd already checked out.

Merlin shrugged. He was a little disappointed. Arthur was fit, and, really, his surname was _Pendragon_. That was fairly epic by itself. Still, there was work to do, and plenty of other fish in the sea.

He put Arthur out of his mind.

* * *

 

The _Pays Dogon_ was split by a legendary escarpment that cut the region in half. From the far plateau, you could see as far as the hazy horizon would permit. From the other, a dead end in the form of a sheer cliffface, cut through with tunnels and caves where families had eluded slave traders and colonists both.

Merlin had looked forward to it since he first read the itinerary Geoff had sketched out. He'd never been to Mali before. His experience with the continent was limited to a holiday in Egypt and a conference in Durban, and comparing either of them to Mali was like comparing England to Greece.

Merlin was met by Amadou Ndiaye, an anthropology student from Senegal who was doing field research in the Dogon country. Amadou had contributed as a researcher on National Geographic Television's series on Africa and was quite eager to work with them again as a consultant on Merlin's article.

Merlin thought of his ex-boyfriend, a metallurgist who'd slaved over his dissertation for the entire time they'd been together. Merlin had done most of the paying in that relationship; he imagined a doctoral student in any country could use the extra income.

"We should speak in French sometimes, Merlin," Amadou had explained from the back of the bush taxi he'd hired to drive them from Bamako to the Dogon country. "Maybe you will improve somewhat before your departure."

Merlin's fumbled French introduction hadn't been that impressive, apparently.

In the first four days in Mali, Merlin was sure he'd learned more useful phrases than the entire time he'd studied it in school. Amadou had taught him a few words of Toro So, too; just enough to exchange greetings and well wishes. It was good, for very few people in Merlin met in Dogon country spoke French.

They travelled from village to village for a week, returning a few times to the town where Amadou made his base. His home, a baked-brick structure of two rooms, had a cement floor that stayed cooler than the ground and a generator from which they charged their laptops and phones. It was tucked away behind a concession fence, and had a pineapple growing incongruously near the door.

Merlin had planned on staying in Bandiagara and camping if necessary later. But after the first night, when they'd stayed up late playing poker and exchanging travel stories, Amadou had invited Merlin stay with him. Merlin had accepted on the spot; unexpected friendships were one of the best parts of travelling.

A few days into the trip, Merlin and Amadou returned early from their visit with a local sculpture artist called Amaguime. Dogon sculptures were made to be kept hidden, because they were so personal to the artist that made them. Amaguime spoke at length about his work, with Amadou translating, and finally allowed Merlin to see one of them. When Merlin raised his camera without thinking, Amaguime had raised his voice.

Merlin learned a new Toro So phrase that afternoon: "I apologise."

The sculptures had included references to Ama, God, and the _nommos,_ his human/fish-like ancestral spirits that formed the basis of much of the Dogon beliefs. Merlin had read about the Dogon creation mythology before he arrived; some was long-held legend, other parts were said to be revealed only to two French anthropologists. That part held that the _nommos_ descended from the star Sirius, who arrived to inhabit the earth until they were later driven out.

Legend held that the _nommos_ would return, but none of the people, be they elders or farmers or merchants or mothers, that he had met had shared that story with him.

Maybe the anthropologists were having everyone on.

Amadou had shrugged. "They don't know you very well," had been his explanation.

On Merlin's last night in Amadou's house, the village hosted a wedding celebration for a woman called Janice, an American Peace Corps volunteer who'd served in their village several years ago and was back with her fiancé to visit her host family. The party had gone on until the small hours of the morning, dancing and singing and enough food to feed an army. The children had been released from school early, even, and the _Hogon_ came to observe, though he sat apart as custom required.

Somewhere after his fifth plate of rice and sauce, Amadou pulled Merlin into the circle of dancers.

"Mate. I can't dance to Lady Gaga, never mind something as cool as this," Merlin said, raising his voice so he could be heard. The dance seemed quite intricate. "I'll just ruin it."

Amadou just laughed. "A guest doesn't sit by himself. Come."

Merlin eventually got over his reluctance and ended up one of the last to leave the circle. He took photos with all the village children when asked, and the dancers posed for him. He said goodbye with promises to send copies of the photographs when he returned to England.

When he took Janice's hand to bid her farewell and good luck, he looked down at her bright smile and suddenly, he was attending a very differing celebration.

 

__

> _When he knelt and kissed her hand, she had laughed him off. _

"Honestly, Merlin. You don't show _him_ any respect. Don't start treating me like some fine lady."

"You are a fine lady, your Highness," Merlin had insisted. "Look at your gown. It must have taken three seamstresses to manage it."

"Four," she corrected him. Her dimples flashed in her cheek. "I mean, if you count me."

"You didn't!"

"This is an important gown, Merlin. Of course I wasn't just going to sit back and let someone else do it."

"A Queen sewing her own wedding dress? It really is a new age, isn't it?"

"It is," the King said, coming up behind them from where he'd been dancing with a cousin of his mother's. "If she had her way, she would have prepared my new armour herself as well." He took the Queen's hand in his, and brought it to his lips.

"Your armour is my job," Merlin said.

"It hasn't been your job for some time, yet you persist in looking after it. You do know I need you doing more important things, now, right?"

"Your armour is very important to me, Sire." Merlin winked at the Queen, and the King took Merlin's hand in his free one, sheltered from the view of the court by his ermine-trimmed robe. Even still, sharp eyes were all around them. There were some still in the court who disapproved of the King's choice of bride, who thought it was a cynical choice and not the joining of two people with genuine affection for each other, if not raging passion.

It wouldn't do to fuel their suspicions.

"I wish you both every happiness," Merlin said, formally, and he felt them both stare.

"I have every happiness I could ever want," the King said, looking between the both of them.

 

Merlin shook himself. Janice and her fiancé looked at him like he was crazy.

He was crazy. There was no other possible explanation. Déjà vu was one thing. Seeing people at holy sites? Having memories of weddings he'd never attended? Visions of people he'd never met, whose features he couldn't seem to get close enough to make out? Calling blokes by other names in bed? And not just any old name, but one name, one name that had been following him since he'd learned to read.

Arthur.

 

* * *

 

Heathrow was usually also not on the list of Merlin's favourite airports. To be fair, he was hard-pressed to think of an airport he did like, but if such a place existed, it wasn't Heathrow.

On that occasion, though, Heathrow was a most welcome sight.

As Merlin pushed his luggage down the serpentine ramp that led to the Heathrow Express, all he could think about his how badly he wanted to lay down in his own bed and sleep for years. Sean was going to fetch him from Paddington, and he was even looking forward to seeing his daft face.

His luggage had doubled in size somewhere along the way, he realised as he tried to lift it into the boot of Sean's car. It always did.

Sean dropped him at home, thank God, so that Merlin could get a few hours' sleep before he was due at the pub for a formal welcome back. Which was ridiculous anyway since he was leaving again in ten days' time, but then, his friends never needed much reason for a party.

"So, darling," Renuka said as Merlin walked into the pub, laden with bags and parcels. "What did you bring us?"

He passed out the things he had brought back: shell jewelry and _pagnes_ for Renu, _saree_ fabric for Emma, her flatmate, and for Sean, a collection of percussion instruments he'd picked up in each place.

"Maybe you could use them on your next track," Merlin said. He was joking; these were more ornamental than functional, although the calabash was pretty solid.

"Oh, did he tell you?" Emma butted into the conversation. She looked a bit silly, having wrapped her _saree_ around herself like a massive shawl, and Merlin could only pray she wouldn't spill on it.

"Tell me what?"

"He's got a meeting with Virgin!" she said, before Sean could even look away from the instruments.

"Oi! Let me tell my news. Anyway. Yeah. Meeting with Virgin. And I played The Underbelly whilst you were studying new worlds and new civilisations, boldly going where many people have already been…"

"Oi. Old worlds and old civilisations, thank you."

"But yeah. This could be it, mate."

"When's the meeting?"

"Later this month. I'm going to have a piss up either way, you'll be there, right?"

Merlin bit his lip. "Dunno. I'm heading to Brazil next week; have to do Arizona after."

Emma signalled the waiter for another round. "How is this even your life, Merlin? You're doing all six continents in, like, a month."

"There's seven continents," Renu muttered. Emma looked confused, and started counting them out on her fingers.

"Yeah, it's pretty insane, but it's been good, too. Hard to learn enough in any one place, but hopefully my supplementary research and contributing writers will help."

"Eh, don't fuss. You always seem to know more than you think you do. About everything. I'm sure magic's no different."

 

> _And what would you know about magic, Merlin?_

 

"Nothing," Merlin said. All three looked at him in surprise.

"I mean, it's nothing…compared to the idea I have for my next piece. You'll love it, it's on independent music businesses around the EU…"

Dammit.

 

* * *

 

Merlin spent much of his week back in London trying to outline his story, but it was painfully slow going.

He tapped away on his laptop, deleting the same lines over and over.

He made tea.

Sean came over and tried to bully him into watching the footie[.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/885.html)

He spent a half hour trying to coax Gaius into playing with his new mousie toys. Gaius was not impressed.

"Sorry, old man," Merlin said, stroking his hand over Gaius' ears. "I should have remembered you're too old for this foolishness." Gaius had been the neighbourhood cat as long as anyone could remember. He'd been in some scraps, judging from his wonky eye and stiff gait, but he was as proud as ever. On Merlin's first night in his flat, Gaius had jumped in through Merlin's window, and refused to leave.

Gaius just yawned and went back to licking his paws.

Despite picking up a fair share of myths and mysticism, rituals and spiritual beliefs, Merlin was stumped. He had a couple of contributors sending him things as well, from places he wouldn't get to visit. There was enough here for a story, no doubt, but what story?

It was all scattered about his kitchen table, a jumble of notebooks, photos, trinkets and souvenirs together with the books and articles he'd hastily torn from magazines he'd purchased[.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/2483.html) Some were in languages he didn't even understand, but the images were evocative.

It was difficult to concentrate, though, and in the end, he found that putting together thank-you parcels for the people he'd met, with handwritten notes, copies of photos he'd taken, and mementos from London was a far more productive use of his time before he had to leave again.

That, and trying not to Facebook stalk one Arthur Pendragon.

 

* * *

 

Merlin spent eight days in Brazil; longer than he should have done. But he was tired, so in the end, he ponied up the additional money to spend a few days on the beach in Salvador da Bahia.

He spent the first morning just walking around the city, running over his talks with Bernardo, the novelist he'd met in Recife. Bernardo's novels heavily incorporated themes of _Quimbanda_, an Afro-Brasilian spiritual practice that was often scorned publically even as it was practiced privately.

 

"Do you think we could meet someone who practices _Quimbanda_?" Merlin had asked.

The look he'd received from his photographer had not been encouraging. "Spiritual practices are very personal. Not even the neighbours will know about it. You think they will let you photograph them and write about it in your magazine?"

Fair enough.

And now he was in Salvador, walking along the beach on a beautiful evening. He felt lighter, somehow, with the sand between his toes, and he noticed more than one beautiful man walk by and catch his gaze.

He almost considered approaching one of them, of digging out his Portuguese phrasebook and trying to construct a semi-plausible chat-up line, when a woman approached him. He looked down as she thrust a handful of colourful ribbons at him, and asked him a question in Portuguese.

"Sorry," Merlin said, hurriedly digging for his phrasebook. "I mean, _desculpe. Não entendo Portugues._"

She brandished the ribbons at him, again. "_Dois reals, senhor._" She selected a ribbon, red with gold writing, and began tying it on his wrist.

"Make a wish," she said, in careful English. She probably knew a dozen ways to say that phrase.

"No, that's okay. _Não, obrigado_," he continued to protest, but the woman only blinked up at him.

"Make a wish," she repeated.

Merlin huffed and made a wish. _Please don't let me be going crazy_.

He handed the woman her coins, and held out his arm to grudgingly admire the bracelet. Red was his colour.

The next morning, he met with Amalia, an old friend of Geoff's. She was going to take him to meet a _Mai de Santo_ she knew from her childhood, which would be good, because as much fun as Merlin had had at the street festival, he was still really vague on the details of the various African-influenced religions practised in Brazil.

"I see you've made your entreaty to _Senhor do Bonfim,_" she said, nodding at Merlin's wrist.

"Hmmm? Oh, this?" Merlin said, sipping the strong coffee she'd handed him the moment he arrived. Merlin had never drunk so much coffee in his life as he had here in Brazil. "Yeah, a woman on the beach last night wouldn't take no for an answer."

"Of course. It's her livelihood. You know you must wear that until it falls off, yes?"

"Hmmm?"

"If you made a wish, you must wear it until the ribbon falls off on its own. Then your wish will come true."

"Really?" Merlin was sceptical.

"Really. It is one of our mystical practises, Merlin. It would only be correct of you to participate in it, would it not?" she teased him.

Merlin supposed she had a point. It seemed he'd be sporting red and gold for some time; the knot was fast and true.

 

* * *

 

It was hot in Arizona; as hot as it had been in Recife, but without the benefit of an ocean.

He was in a place called Sedona, as beautiful a spot as any he'd seen during the course of his research, with the red and orange rock formations striped against a brilliant blue sky.

He had a meeting later that afternoon with a spiritualist who was going to tell him all about the energy vortices said to be within the formations, but he wanted to see them on his own first, before anyone tainted his opinion of them. He'd head northeast, then, toward the Navajo Nation reservation, for which he'd been studying the etiquette for days.

He'd started at Cathedral Rock, outside of the city; parked his hired car in the gravel near an overlook and just stared at it, gleaming brick red and orange in the sun. He wasn't sure how long he stood and stared after he'd taken a few photos, but there was something about the place that just felt calming.

Maybe it was just knowing the world could randomly create things this beautiful, without any careful thought or planning or expensive art materials. Just water, earth, and time.

A crow flew overhead, in a graceful arc, and Merlin followed its path for a while. Merlin thought of the _yee naaldlooshii_ he'd read about, how in some Navajo legends they could transform into animals at will. Eventually, the bird flew off, but not before he was nearly halfway around the path.

Merlin gazed up at the rock formation until he could feel his forearms start to prickle with sunburn, but he still didn't want to leave. He felt like he was waiting for something.

"Hello, Merlin."

Or someone.

Strangely enough, it didn't startle him. Merlin didn't need to look back over his shoulder.

"Morgana."

"You don't seem that surprised to see me," she said as she stepped over to him.

"I'm not." Very little could surprise him anymore.

"Have you remembered, then?"

"Remembered what?" Sometimes Merlin thought he was about to recall something huge, but when he tried, it just slipped away, like the faces in his visions.

"I suppose not, then. But you're close, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Morgana played with the hem of her cutoffs. "Don't play dumb."

Merlin whirled around. "I won't play dumb if you stop playing coy," he said.

Morgana walked away, ducking under a tree branch and stepping over a low chain barrier. "Walk with me," she said.

Merlin looked up the great rock before him, and shrugged. He felt too peaceful to argue.

They picked their way over rocks and shrubs until they reached the base of the rock formation, where the rocks began to break from the earth. Morgana sat down on one of them, tipped her sunglasses onto her head.

"Did you ever wonder?"

"About what?"

"You. Me. The name that keeps following you. The visions you keep having."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Merlin had kept himself from looking too closely at any of the details; it would have to keep until he was home. He had a job to do, right now, and his personal mental breakdowns couldn't get in the way. Not if he wanted to keep his career.

"Merlin. Morgana. Arthur. Memories of a different place, a different time. An article on myth and magic and spirituality around the world. Come on, Merlin. You used to be better at this."

"Like I've said before, I don't know what you're talking about," Merlin said more forcefully, but Morgana only reached out to grab his arm.

"I think you do. This isn't the first time, you know. You've done this before, and each time I've been there, had to take your scepticism and your insults and your dismissals, the same way I always did. When are you going to stop fucking around with our lives like this?"

Merlin had had enough. "Look. You're the one stalking me like some demented bunny boiler, spouting cryptic shite and acting like you know me. If I make things so difficult for you, why won't you just bugger off and stop chasing me around the globe?"

Morgana shook her head. "You don't even want to sort it out, do you? Just be Merlin, the writer with the cat and the average, faceless friends and the garden flat and the childhood he can't remember. Play your cricket, drink your beer. Fuck the rest of the world, right? Let them manage without you this time."

"You know what I think? I think I'm perfectly sane, and you're the mad one."

"Oh, is that right?" Morgana began pawing at the foliage peeking beneath the rocks, until she found a particular one. She pulled it out and tossed it, roots, soil, and all, in Merlin's face.

Merlin caught it, spat out dirt and sand. "What the fuck—" he started, but before he could continue, he looked down at the plant.

"This is hemlock," he said.

"And how would you know that?"

"It's not supposed to grow this far south," Merlin said, instead.

"Are you an herbalist, then?"

"I don't know how I know that," Merlin whispered. "How do I know that?" When he looked up at Morgana, perplexed, he felt the present moment shimmer away.

 

> _His hands curled around a small bottle. She stared at him, accusing. The King was devastated; a sister promised revenge._

 

Somewhere in the corner of his eye, Morgana sat in the Arizona sun, glaring at him.

 

> _She looked at him in horror as they battled on Camelot's parapets. "You. All this time, you were the same as me? I trusted you!"_
> 
> _"I didn't trust you. Guess I was right," Merlin said, nodding to the bodies of the knights strewn around them._

 

He knew Morgana was still there. Was she the one sending him these strange thoughts? How was she doing it?

 

> _"You've been many things these long years, but never a coward," she told him._

 

When Merlin opened his eyes again, Morgana was nearly nose to nose with him. They stared at each other for a minute, until Merlin shook himself from her grasp.

"Enjoy your trip to Wales, Merlin. I hope it brings you... clarity," Morgana said, and it sounded like a promise. Merlin had to close his eyes at the nauseating revelation that she seemed to know his entire life.

When he opened his eyes again, she was gone.

* * *

To: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Home soon

Hiya,

Arizona's been cool. The New Agers are a little batshite, but harmless. I don't care what anyone says; a mythology created in 1987 is not ancient enough for this article.

I learned a lot about original American myth and legend at the reservation. The photographer got some good shots, too. We need to run them by the Navajo Film Office before I can share them, though, or I'd attach them now.

I'm flying back through Birmingham, because I need to go to north Wales for my final stop. Arthurian stuff FTW. It's like my reward after spending nearly two months being invasive and accidentally insulting people everywhere I go.

See you soon. Hug Gaius for me.

xx

\--

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Renuka Duraswaimy ([renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Home soon

Looking forward to it.

I hope you didn't make too much of an ass out of yourself. With either the Native Americans or the New Agers, although if you had to choose to offend one of the two, go with the New Agers.

xx  
Renu

 

* * *

 

Merlin had a Welsh name, so he supposed they must have been Welsh somewhere back in the day. He'd only ever known London, though, and had only been to Wales a handful of times, to Cardiff or Swansea, mostly, or to Holyhead to catch the ferry to Ireland.

Wales was pretty, and Merlin was more than happy to wear a red dragon when it came time for the Six Nations just to piss people off, but that was pretty much the extent of it.

He was back now, driving through the countryside, stopping here and there to pop into a shop or talk to a farmer. He didn't need to do much research on Arthurian legends, but Geoff's outline had specifically included Camlann, the place where King Arthur was reputed to have fallen and with him a golden age in unified Britain.

Not everyone agreed that was where it had happened, but Merlin knew that it was. As always, he tried not to think about the things he'd been seeing and hearing, but that first, frightening vision in New Zealand had been about a fallen king called Arthur, and this place? This place felt like he'd been there before.

Merlin arrived at _Dinas Mawddwy_, where the field of Camlann was in mid-afternoon. He'd never visited Camlan, any more than he'd visited Carmarthen, where a wizard who'd shared his name was said to have grown up. Until recently, Merlin was more interested in Arthur as legends than in Arthur as history, and here in Wales, they tended to treat Arthur like history and with a sense of propriety that he, being an Englishman, was told he wouldn't understand.

Maybe he'd understand better now.

He was greeted by a strange man by the name of Laurence. He had long white hair and wore improbably short trousers. Laurence showed him how to use the dowsing rods, explained to him why this method supposedly would show them where King Arthur had died.

Merlin listened politely, but inside he wanted to scream at the man to get on with it. Merlin felt stretched to the breaking point, his mind no longer his own, and if this excursion didn't bring the peace Morgana promised, Merlin wasn't sure what he would do.

The dowsing turned out to be a bit of a let-down, and he agreed with everything Laurence said just to get him to leave. He knew intuitively that he needed to do this alone.

"Do you mind if I keep the rods, though?" Merlin asked. "To, ah, photograph. For the article."

Laurence looked thrilled at this.

Merlin waited in his hired car long past sundown, until the night was pitch and quiet and overhead, the Dog Star seemed to wink at him as it had in the Dogon Country. Like the entire heavens knew something he didn't know, and they were all in on the joke.

As midnight approached, he got out of his car, the beeping of the alarm setting the only sound. The whole field felt like it was waiting, the same way Merlin increasingly felt, in his bones, that he was waiting for something to make sense.

A strange fog had settled about the field, white whorls of mist that seemed to skate the edges of the field, shrouding it from the rest of the world.

He took a deep breath, raised the dowsing rods, and walked.

He took one step, then another, then another still, feeling his heartbeat grow faster in his chest and he put one foot forward, then another, walking forward, tilting at his personal windmill.

When he reached the spot Laurence had pointed out earlier, he looked out at the horizon, and gasped as the fog parted like...like _magic_, and four women seemed to float toward him.

He fell to his knees with the shock of it.

 

> _His mother's eyes when, as an infant, Merlin floated the beaten old kettle across the room. His mother. He had a mother after all._

 

Mud squelched between his fingers, but Merlin didn't move.

 

> _Will's father was killed in battle, and suddenly, playing Knights and Bandits wasn't as much fun as it once was._

 

His knees were sinking into the mud now, but still Merlin paid to no attention.

 

> _Gaius (Gaius!) falling. Merlin moving furniture to catch him. A letter, a pair of eyeglasses, a slumped form at the base of an altar._

 

Merlin could only hold on, could only press his hands and knees into the ground, as the memories came, one after the other, a tireless assault.

 

> _Morgana, when the only power she knew how to wield was that of a well-cut frock. Gwen's sunny grin as she handed him a flower._
> 
> And Arthur.
> 
> Arthur throwing knives at a hapless servant holding a target. Arthur laughing at him. Arthur shaking him, telling him he was an idiot, that he shouldn't have lied to him.
> 
> Arthur holding him like he was important.
> 
> Arthur pressed against him in the chill of an early winter sunrise.
> 
> Arthur, life draining out of his open eyes.
> 
> Always Arthur.

 

The women had nearly reached him when Merlin sank into unconsciousness. The last thing Merlin saw was Morgana bending over him.


	2. In Which It Was Definitely Destiny, and His Destiny is Great in Bed

**BOOK II: IN WHICH IT WAS DEFINITELY HIS DESTINY, AND HIS DESTINY IS GREAT IN BED**

> "Struggle.
> 
> Mythical struggles built gods, sovereigns, prophets, and entire peoples, and that force sometimes called _magic_ was never very far away. In Britain, their greatest king was said to born of magic to lesser mortals; this magic still holds that King Arthur will return to face even greater challenges. The Chinese Emperor, Yan Di, was said to have been born by his mother's telepathy with a mythic dragon, the imperial symbol of China. Asgard's 12 halls, including Valhalla, were built for the great Norse kings by giants with hammers, while Prince Siddhārtha Gautama faced the demon Mara, turned his arrows into lotus blossoms, and awoke as the Buddha. In many ways, these mythical struggles have been mirrored and repeated, over and over throughout history, in our day-to-day world.
> 
> -Merlin Emrys, "Magic and Myth: How They Shape Civilizations." _National Geographic_, November 2010.

~*~

Merlin woke in his flat, in his own bed. He could feel Gaius where he curled up in the space between Merlin's ankles, could smell his washing soap and... coffee?

He cracked open an eye to see Morgana sitting at his bedside, coffee in hand.

"Wha—?"

"Good morning, Merlin."

Merlin sank back down to the bed. The memories were still tumbling around his head, with a bit more linearity to them, but nonetheless disarming.

"Found your mind, then?" she said, mildly. It wasn't a question.

Merlin had a sudden image of Morgana, her face streaked with grime and tears, bending over a figure in a boat. She had three others with her, and together, they raised their hands and parted mist thick as drapery until the boat slid away, out of sight.

It had been Merlin's last look at King Arthur, the man he had served for most of his life. The man he had loved for almost as long. They'd been so happy, two parts of a whole, until Mordred's blade cleaved them apart, leaving Merlin behind and Arthur with...

"I hated you," Merlin blurted. "That you got to have him longer than I."

"I hated you then, too," Morgana countered. "Mostly because you tried to kill me, though."

More memories came back, unbidden. Their final confrontation, seer and sorcerer, when Merlin had forced Morgana's hand and revealed her betrayal to all, including Arthur. How Morgana had devoted her life from that point on to the destruction of everything Merlin held close, even, it had seemed when she sought to steal Excalibur, Arthur himself.

"Er," Merlin said. "So, why were you helping me before?"

Morgana laughed. "You ask as if you think I was given a choice." She sighed. "A thousand years is a long time, Merlin. We got over that a long time ago.["](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/3062.html)

"Did we?"

"We didn't have much of a choice, then, either. Survival makes for strange alliances, doesn't it?"

"I don't remember, though," Merlin said, but even as he said it he started to see pieces of it in his mind.

Morgana just stared, inscrutable.

"Was I...dead? Am I reborn or something?"

"No, Merlin. You've been alive this entire time. "

Merlin needed a few minutes to process that. He didn't feel thirty, never mind...a really big number. The calculation was doing his head in.

"This entire time. So many years. I don't remember it. I...what was I doing?"

"Running away, mostly."

"Where? How?"

"As far away as you could get. You make a habit of globetrotting when things get tough. I've been alive this entire time, too." Morgana shot Merlin a look, then reached into the handbag that lay at her feet. "And unlike you, I'm not a coward."

Merlin had no idea what she was on about, so he settled for being petty. "Chloe, really?" Merlin commented. "How contemporary of you. Being an immortal stalker must pay well these days."

"Fashion-conscious. How stereotypical of you," she retorted, rifling through her bag.

Morgana drew out a large crystal, and Merlin felt a curl of dread when he looked at it.

"Do you know what this is?"

Merlin looked at the crystal for a long time. Hell yes, he knew what it was.

"Is that the crystal of Neahtid?" he asked.

"One and the same. It seemed the least innocuous of the crystals to foist upon you. You've not been a fan of them since..."

"The crystal cave," Merlin finished, with a shudder. He remembered at least a little bit of his post-Arthur life, then, if he could remember that Nimueh had entrapped him in that cave for too many years as payment for his crimes against her.

Nimueh! She had been one of the witches in the mist. One of the ones who had taken Arthur to Avalon, one of those who had approached Merlin last night.

Who else still lingered, then?

Morgana set the crystal upon Merlin's bedside table. "Look into it," she urged. "It will be faster than my trying to explain it all."

Merlin looked at her for a long moment, fear churning in his gut. "Maybe I don't want to know."

"Not knowing will only drive you mad. Little slips of memory breaking through the enchantments you've built, never knowing when you might wake up and find whole new places in your memories you never knew existed."

"Story of my life," Merlin said.

"Yes, of all the lives you've constructed for yourself. But then, they do say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, only expecting different results."

Merlin just glared at Morgana, as she took the crystal in her hands.

"_Gecyðan him him gēardagas_," Morgana said. Merlin watched as her eyes flashed golden, until she nodded at the crystal and he turned to look into it.

 

* * *

 

> _  
> "Coward."_
> 
> Merlin, still young in appearance if not in truth, turned from where he sat bent over an ancient tome. "I beg your pardon, my lady?"
> 
> "You heard me. You're a coward." Morgana loomed over him, agitated. Her dress was strange, at least several hundred years more recent than she should be herself.
> 
> "Get out." Merlin said.
> 
> "You've been many things these long years, but never a coward." Morgana had always been persistent.
> 
> A shadow crossed Merlin's face in the crystal, and Merlin could feel it as if it were happening just then. "Would that that were so."
> 
> "You're really going to do this?"
> 
> "Yes. You can't stop me."
> 
> "And when he wakes?" _Arthur_.
> 
> "We both know he's never going to wake," Merlin said, his voice as brittle as the shards of ice that used to hang from the Camelot's gargoyles in winter.
> 
> "The why are we here?" Merlin could see Morgana's faith, her hope still shining out of her, and Merlin wondered when she became the hopeful one and he the cynic. "How can we be here, if not to keep the world ready for him?"
> 
> "I don't know. Some cruel punishment for past misdeeds? Stocks are rather out of fashion now."
> 
> "I see the years have made you no less a fool."
> 
> "Nor you any less a betraying harpy."
> 
> She swung to slap him across the face, but he caught her hand before it connected.
> 
> With a final glare, Morgana turned to leave. Her long, black hair swung loose around her. Unbound hair was unfashionable for this time, but then, she had never paid attention to the whims of lesser kings and queens.
> 
> "Wait." Merlin set his hand on the woman's shoulder. "Can't you understand? Things are different now."
> 
> "They're not that different," Morgana said. "Here." She thrust a crystal toward Merlin, and Merlin recoiled as if he'd been burnt.
> 
> "What are you doing with that?"
> 
> "What will you tell him when he comes back, when you can't remember anything? What if he needs you to know things, things that will help him?"
> 
> "You still believe he's coming back?" Merlin scoffed, and sat heavily back in his chair, the book and his quill abandoned before him on the desk.
> 
> "He is. Why else would the gods have told us to bring him to Avalon?"
> 
> "The gods enjoy their jokes."
> 
> "He'll be back, Merlin."
> 
> "It's been centuries. If he hasn't returned yet, he never will." Merlin was fascinated by the despair he could see written on his features. He was sure he'd never felt anything like that in his life, but apparently he was wrong.
> 
> "You used to have more faith in him."
> 
> Merlin sighed, but didn't look back at her. "I used to be a lot of things."
> 
> "Merlin. You can't just throw away everything you have done in hundreds of years. What happened has happened. It cannot just be undone because you're too weak to bear the pain of it."
> 
> Merlin stood, his books and instruments clattering to the ground, his hand raised as if to strike.
> 
> "Don't speak to me in that way."
> 
> Morgana raised her chin. "I can speak to you however I like."
> 
> "You always have done. Only now I know better than to take it."
> 
> "Yes. That and the fact that trying to kill me would be a rather pointless hobby these days."
> 
> Merlin shoved his face into his hands. He felt so tired. So without hope
> 
> "It's so easy for you, to sit there and judge me, isn't it? You have your sister. You have Nimueh. You even have Freya, and she was supposed to be mine. You get everything."
> 
> Morgana said nothing.
> 
> "You can part the veil anytime you like and sit with him as he sleeps. I get nothing. I have nothing, and without him, I am nothing."
> 
> "Forgetting it won't make it less true."
> 
> "Doesn't matter. Now get out. I may not be able to kill you, but there is plenty I could do and you know it."
> 
> Morgana shook with barely contained rage. Before she swept from the room, though, she set the crystal down upon Merlin's desk with a heavy thud. "Use it," she demanded. "If not for yourself, and not for me, then for Arthur. When he wakes—" she held up her hand to stave off his protest—"when he wakes, he'll need you. Not some hollowed out shell. You. Although the gods only know why."
> 
> With that, she swept from the room.
> 
> Merlin watched her leave, and after she was gone, he considered the crystal for a long time. Finally, he lifted it up.
> 
> Perhaps the witch was right.

 

* * *

It was strange, Merlin thought, to live with new memories that were older than England in his brain.

He never realised how empty it had been in there until now.

* * *

 

After he'd spent the better part of an hour in difficult communion with a crystal, he'd endured a near unbearable fry-up with Morgana, who seemed to treat his post-memory-regaining shock like a particularly bad hangover.

After everything that had happened, after Merlin's whole universe had been shaken like a kaleidoscope and settled into a whole new reality, the two of them sat in a cafe, drinking milky tea and eating beans on toast like they were just normal British people.

"It's our tradition," Morgana had said with a grim smile.

"So, you remember the time that we..." Morgana started, stabbing at her food. Apparently this was normal for their post-_ādīlegian_ spell debriefing, if Merlin's vague memory was anything to go by. Which it shouldn't be. It was like Emmental cheese in there right now.

"Ugh, yes, don't remind me." Merlin shuddered.

This conversational pattern continued for a while. An uncomfortable silence would fall, and Merlin would drink more tea, and then...

"Did I really save you from drowning that time?" Merlin said, as a new memory turned up.

"You mean the time I was falsely accused of being a witch?"

"Um, what was false about that?"

"Shut up. Yes, you did save me. If you hadn't been spelled back to infancy at the time, you'd have remembered I can't die."

"Yes, well, not dying probably would have made things worse." Merlin remembered those days, now. Long after Uther was dust in the ground, a whole new era of magical persecution had risen throughout Europe and spread to the New World, where Merlin had lived, once. And Morgana had followed, and been caught.

"I tried to kill you," Merlin said, after another long silence.

"Yes, it was something of a habit of yours. We've discussed this already."

"You betrayed him." That was the one thing Merlin never learned to completely forgive.

"He betrayed us, our people, all of us, first, but you stood by him." There was very little rancour left in Morgana's voice. He supposed she was right. It _had_ been a long time now.

"So did you, by the end."

"Eventually." At the end of Arthur's life, Morgana had been there after all. She'd been the one to stroke his eyelids like a lover, and kiss his brow like a sister. She'd sat vigil like a mother, too, she'd told Merlin once, as if the animosity they'd had as adults had never happened.

"Why? What's in this for you?"

Morgana didn't answer.

After their meal, Morgana walked with Merlin back to his flat. Merlin's head was still spinning. Every few minutes a new memory would emerge, and he would be overwhelmed again. It was like the past two months playing at quadruple speed, bombarding him with imagery and scents and sounds and he wasn't sure his mind could hold them all.

"One thing, though," Merlin said to Morgana as they wove their way through the crowds of people on their way to their offices, or to the shops. "Why now?"

"What's that?" Morgana said, pulling her sunglasses out of her bag.

"Why am I remembering now? Why did it start in New Zealand? Why did certain things seem to trigger memories? Why were you following me?"

"That's four things at least, Merlin."

Merlin stuck his tongue out and toyed with the pockets of his hoodie. It was cool outside, still, even for May, but at least the sun was up.

"I don't know why certain things resonated for you, but I do know why I was following you."

"Why were you following me?" Merlin asked, when Morgana looked over at him expectantly.

"Because it was time. I told you before, didn't I?"

"Yes, and you were as delightfully maddening then as you are now."

Morgana just laughed at him, and even though they were long past it, part of him felt like a gangly fool in front of her. Even over a thousand years old, she was as beautiful as ever. More than one head turned as they walked by, and Merlin knew they weren't looking at him.

"You don't have to come back with me, you know," Merlin pointed out. "I'm a big boy, I can look after myself."

"Just making sure you don't get it into your head to cast the spell again," Morgana said.

"I...could I even do that?" Merlin felt the familiar spark wind its way under his skin. He could feel _magic_, now that he knew to look for it, but he wasn't quite sure he could access it. It felt...blocked, somehow.

"Do you want to?"

Merlin sighed, and chewed on his lip. "I...if I had to spend a thousand years living with the missing place I feel when I think about him, I'm not surprised I did it."

"But it's different now."

"How is it different now?" Merlin frowned.

"Honestly, Merlin. Did you forget your current life when you remembered the others?" Morgana's pace quickened so she could get around a group of school children crowding around a newsagent.

Merlin jammed his hands in his pockets and caught up with her. "What are you on about?"

"Meet anyone during these research trips of yours?"

"Yeah. I met you, and look where that got me."

"Right. No one else, then? No one in Paris?"

Merlin stopped where he was in the middle of the pavement. Someone bumped into his back, and a few people brushed by him, muttering, but he didn't care.

"Oh, my God."

Morgana looked back over her shoulder.

"Oh my GOD! The airport...Paris... the Scotch. But— he was a complete prat!"

Morgana dragged Merlin out of the foot traffic by his elbow. "No change there, then."

Merlin flushed. "He got much nicer in his later years, I will have you know."

"I don't doubt it."

Merlin kept babbling. "That was him all along? Why didn't he recognise me?"

"Same reason you didn't recognise him. It wasn't time."

"Oh God. I have to find him." Merlin's mind was already turning over every detail of their meeting. "How am I am going to find him, though? I Googled Arthur Pendragon. Do you know how many hits you get when you Google Arthur Pendragon? Because I do, and it's a lot. He could be anywhere in Britain. He could be an expat! Wait. I know he had meetings in Copenhagen, and he has been to Mali. That might narrow it down."

Morgana rolled her eyes as she listened to Merlin's increasingly desperate and disjointed brainstorm.

"D'you mind if I duck into this newsagent? Won't be a tick," she said.

When she returned, she tossed him a magazine. TIME, by the looks of it. An American magazine. "Don't say I never helped you with anything."

Merlin looked down at the magazine cover and gasped.

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v169/melacita/?action=view&current=TimeCover2.png)

Merlin stood there, not registering anything else Morgana said. He just stared down at Arthur for as long as he could, feeling the grief and the longing and even the desire like it was new again, like he hadn't spent a thousand years roaming the world making himself forget.

A flash of red caught the corner of his eye, and he watched as his _Senhor do Bonfim_ bracelet fluttered to the pavement.

 

* * *

 

Morgana left Merlin alone in his flat that night, as soon as she had determined he wasn't going to try to cast the spell again. She promised to give his love to "the girls" — Freya, Nimueh, and bloody Morgause — and dashed off into the night, smug and ethereal as ever.

Not that Merlin wanted to cast the spell again.

He'd started over dozens of times out of want for this man, and suddenly, here he was, in vivid colour on the cover of TIME magazine.

Merlin traced the outline of Arthur's face in the photo. His cheekbones, the square jaw, the curl of his fringe over his forehead, the pinkness in his cheeks.

In all the long years before Merlin had lost faith, he'd had to rely on nothing more than memory when he wanted to see Arthur's face. He'd had no photos, then, and whenever he tried to sketch Arthur's likeness, by hand or by magic, it was never quite right.

This, though. This was his Arthur. He was back, and he looked as beautiful and confident and shining as he had been that horrible moment when Merlin had watched, unable to do anything, as Mordred's blade caught him in his flank.

Merlin only had time to kneel for the briefest of moments at Arthur's side, had only been able to clasp Arthur's face in his hands for the barest of moments, before Morgana had appeared, and with her, Morgause, Freya, and Nimueh.

Merlin was too focused on Arthur to even wonder at their appearance, these witches who'd died because of him, or at his hand. He had seen them seem them torn apart, burnt, and dissolved by the most powerful magic in turn, yet there they stood, and they were taking his Arthur away, over the shrouded lake, to a place no mortal man could see without dying.

Merlin could see it. He had done. He could see it, but was never allowed passage through the mists.

He'd tried once, many years after Arthur, to bargain with the _Sidhe_ for passage, but they didn't look fondly on him.

"What can you offer us, Emrys?" they'd taunted. "We already have your mortal prince."

Merlin had no response, and so Avalon stayed shut to him, and Arthur out of reach.

And now, here he was, a perfect rendering on a magazine cover. He flipped it open and started to read.

 

> Arthur Pendragon hates it when his friends call him King Arthur, a practise that started when he was captain of the London School of Economics' men's football team and has continued ever since.
> 
> He's anti-monarchy, for a start, and this former chemist and savvy businessman would rather save the world than rule it. When he was barely out of university, he founded the Excalibur Group, a company devoted to exploring alternatives to fossil fuels, and in just ten short years, he's managed to find himself on the threshold of his most important victory yet.
> 
> At once both shockingly immodest— "this could be the biggest innovation of the 21st century," he says proudly as he shows us through the R&amp;D department (the same that turned out the compound Dupont purchased the rights to, making Pendragon a wealthy man)— and endearingly down-to-earth in his Converse All-Stars and faded Abercrombie and Fitch tee-shirt, Pendragon is sitting on a veritable gold mine.
> 
> If the next round of tests work out, he explains, there's a good chance his Excalibur biofuel will revolutionise the transportation sector, foster economic development in less-developed nations, and, let's be frank— make Pendragon an even wealthier man than he already is.
> 
> Arthur Paul Pendragon was born on August 17, 1977 to Dr Meredith and Addy Pendragon; his sister Louise followed a few years later. Meredith, a scholar of modern languages at the London School of Economics and Political Science, fondly recounts the day little Arthur, not yet in primary school, started playing with kitchen ingredients to see what reaction he could get from them.
> 
> "He's always been a natural leader," Dr Pendragon notes proudly from his office at LSE. "But more than that, he's always wanted to know how things work, and how to make them work better."
> 
> His desire to make things work better is what led him to biofuels, and now, with several patents under his belt, the whole world is buzzing. Arthur Pendragon has become the new face of the climate change awareness movement.
> 
> Somewhere in Tennessee, Al Gore is ringing his plastic surgeon in despair.
> 
> And despair he should. Pendragon—who, when not known as King Arthur, is referred to as Pretty Boy by his detractors in the industry—is a handsome man in his prime, and he pretends to not know it ("He knows it," says one of his friends from his gym, "but he tries to hide that fact anyway. He's a good lad, Arthur."). But plenty of others know it. In addition to his appearances in _The Economist_, _The Times Magazine_ and, of course, TIME, Pendragon also has the dubious distinction of ranking in the top ten of _Hello!_'s most eligible bachelors in Britain.
> 
> Quite a feat, when you consider that he's also gay.
> 
> Yes, gay. Pendragon doesn't hide it, and while a few conservative politicians have been vocal about the fact — Parliamentarian Chris Grayling has had his say — "mostly, people are very accepting here in England," Pendragon notes. "And let's face it, Mr Grayling isn't going to support a biofuels enterprise no matter who leads it. He doesn't even believe climate change is real."
> 
> He has a point there. And, as he kicks around a soccerball ("It's a FOOTball!") with his friends one night after work, one can't help but wonder if Pendragon gets away with it because he is obviously someone you'd want to have on your side during a brawl. He's fast and still in university-athlete shape; anyone calling him crude names might find themselves surprised with a fist in the face, and a suggestion that they spend their time working for charities instead of trying to bully people who are different.
> 
> It was his experiences with homophobia that led Pendragon to found The Round Table, a youth investment trust that reaches out to out gay youth who face stigma and discrimination from their peers, their teachers, and even their family. The Round Table offers social activities, support groups, and entrepreneurial skills-building as a way for youth to build self-esteem. Over 5,000 London area youth took part in the program in 2009; Pendragon has personally worked with hundreds of them in his free time. This work, in addition to his speaking engagements about climate change and energy conservation at elementary schools, has earned him a number of honours, including an Ashden Award in 2009, presented to him by Prince Charles.

There were photos accompanying the article. Under one of Arthur posing with a tall, thin man with messy dark hair and pale skin, were the words: _Pendragon and his former partner Matthew George celebrate his Ashden award._

Merlin wasn't the only one to have a type, apparently.

* * *

Merlin could barely keep his hands from shaking as he dialled Tom's number in America. He listened to the rings, willed the man to be there, to not get the answerphone.

"Tom Malleore," he heard as the call connected

"Tom. It's Merlin Emrys here." Merlin bit his lip. Please work.

"Ah, Merlin. I was just thinking I needed to catch up with you. You're back in London?"

"Yeah, just got back from Wales yesterday."

"How'd the research go?"

"It was… informative." That was one way of putting it.

"Good, good. When do I get to see it?"

"Soon. I've got about half of it written. Still waiting on the Romany copy from Monica, and I have a few leads on additional sources I'm still waiting on," Merlin said. It was only a slight exaggeration. Want to be as comprehensive as we can be, after all."

"Mmmm."

Merlin paused. "Look, Tom, I was wondering if you could do me a favour."

Silence. "What you do you need?" Tom said after a moment.

"I was wondering. Do you know anyone at TIME?"

"TIME?"

"Yeah, the magazine. Do you know anyone there?"

"You hoping for a reference or something?"

"No, nothing like that. I just…well, I met someone whilst travelling."

"Merlin, this isn't match.com."

"No, I know, that's not what I meant. I met this guy whilst travelling and he helped me out of a difficult spot. In fact, the success of this story might depend on my finding him."

"He work for TIME? I mean, we're not exactly competitors but I'd hate to be beholden to them for some of our work."

"He doesn't work for them. He was on their cover."

"He was on the cover?"

"Yeah. Arthur Pendragon. Climate change guy."

"I know who Arthur Pendragon is. Everyone's heard of Excalibur."

Everyone except Merlin, apparently, and he felt like an ass. "Yeah. I was hoping someone at TIME might be able to help."

Tom paused for a long moment. "I shouldn't, but I can do you one better. We profiled him last year, remember?" Merlin heard clicking as Tom worked on his keyboard. "So, you got a pen?"

"Um, yeah, hang on a sec." He had a pen, but no paper nearby, so he wrote the very posh address and the website url right onto his wall, then nearly hung up on Tom in his excitement.

* * *

Merlin felt a little creepy walking by Arthur's building every day. For three days he just stared up at the mirrored windows in the modern office building, wondering if he would get the nerve to go inside, take the lift to the 12th floor, ask the receptionist for Arthur.

He could have emailed, he supposed, but what would he have said? "Hi. I'm the bloke you got drunk in Paris on expensive Scotch after you almost beat me up in the Paris airport. Just wanted to say hello now that I have realised you are, in fact, ~~the love of my thousand year life~~ ~~actually famous~~ ~~as honourable and strong as you ever were~~ ~~really fit~~ a cool bloke. Fancy a beer?"

Not that stalking his place of work was really a better use of his time.

On the third day, he'd seen Arthur leave his building, cross the road with a man and a woman, probably co-workers, and go into a bar. Then Merlin had gone home.

On the fourth day, Merlin was determined not to go. He had an article to write, about magic and myth and how they shape civilisations.

When he'd started the article, he'd felt overwhelmed. What could he possibly say with authority about magic?

He was still overwhelmed, only now it was because he knew too much. There was so much magic in the world; how had he ended up the mythological figurehead of it? Bloody imperialism.

It was so overwhelming that he really needed to step out for a coffee, and if stepping out meant spending nearly an hour on two tube lines until he found himself at a bar across from Arthur's office building, well, what of it?

He needed a drink.

The bar was fairly packed with the after-work crowds, and Merlin had to squeeze past a group of women in sharp suits to get to the bar. As he passed, he had a strange sense of awareness, and when he turned around, Arthur was sat by himself at the table in a corner, nursing a drink — Scotch, by the looks — and typing away on a laptop.

Arthur always was dedicated to his work.

"What're you having?" the bartender asked Merlin.

"Ah, you have Ardbeg?" he asked, and prayed his credit card still had room on after the workout he'd given it the past month.

It worked, and Merlin carried his two glasses over to where Arthur sat. He clicked one of the glasses down on the table, and tried to keep his hands from shaking.

Arthur looked up in distracted confusion, and for a moment, Merlin thought that maybe that was all it took, that suddenly Arthur would remember it all.

His expression cleared after a moment, and he stood up.

"Merlin?"

Merlin nodded down to the drink, and hoped Arthur couldn't hear the way his heart was pounding. "Arthur. Hi."

"What are you doing here?" Arthur looked bemused, like he used to when Merlin had done something to catch him off guard. It made Merlin want to beam like an idiot.

"Well," _think fast, think fast_, "I had a meeting in the area, and it was deadly dull. Drove me to drink, in fact. So I stopped in here and who do I see but the prat with outstanding taste in liquor who I happen to owe a drink? So I came in."

"You don't owe me a drink. That was for my nearly beating you up," Arthur said.

"Sure, the first one. But I am pretty sure we had another after that. Anyway, mind if I sit down?"

"Oh. Yes, of course, please do." Arthur shut down his laptop and shoved it into the bag sitting on the chair beside him.

Merlin dropped down into the chair opposite Arthur, hoping the grin on his face looked more cocky than desperate, even though he was desperate. This was _Arthur_, after so long, and here he was, close enough to touch. Merlin all but needed to sit on his hands to stop himself from reaching across the table to touch any part of him that he could reach.

"Cheers," Arthur saluted Merlin with his glass, and for a moment, Merlin could smell saltwater and the tang of metal, but it passed.

They chatted whilst they watched the match playing on the mounted television, rather, Arthur watched and Merlin pretended to watch while he tried not to trace Arthur's form with blatant hunger in his eyes. Merlin learned that Arthur had, in fact, made it to Denmark early the morning after their mini-bender together.

"What is it you do, then?" Merlin asked, casually.

Arthur stared at him like he was mad. "You really don't know?"

Merlin shook his head, feigning innocence.

"Researcher like you, I would have thought you'd Googled me."

"Some people are hard to find on Google."

"I noticed. Searching for Merlin Emrys turned up a bunch of your magic and myth, but nothing on you until the fifteenth page. Liked your article on water, by the way."

Merlin choked. "You Googled me too? Oh God, that sounds dirty."

Arthur howled with laughter. "I like to know everything I can about the people I ply with Scotch," he said. "And for some reason, I really wanted to know more about you. There's…"

"Something about me?"

"Yeah. Can't put my finger on it." Arthur shook his head, shrugged with embarrassment.   
"Sorry, that's a bit daft."

Merlin couldn't breathe, fighting against the burn in the corner of his eyes. He'd had lives, many lives. Other lovers. Amazing experiences. But this...this was Arthur, and Arthur was everything. Even when he shouldn't be, he was.

"It's not daft," Merlin finally said. "And I should probably stop having you on. I Googled you, too. Got a bunch of magic and myth with a heaping dose of royalty for you. Oh, and a TIME magazine cover."

Arhur rubbed his jaw where his five o'clock shadow was coming in, and Merlin had a visceral memory of scraping a razor across Arthur's neck, of running hot towels over his skin, meeting Arthur's eyes through the steam from the bowl of hot water.

"You're quite the superstar," Merlin added. "Even with the lofty expectations that people must have from your name.

"Sounds cooler than it really is. It's mostly trying stuff and failing miserably, but every once in a while, you hit on something with potential."

"A replacement for oil that doesn't affect the food supply, that poor communities can sell access to, and lucrative enough that corrupt multinationals might abandon drilling for it within 50 years? Sure, that's got potential."

"What people do with it isn't my problem. I'm just the brain."

"I wasn't judging you. I'm on board the climate change train."

"Mmm, right," Arthur said. He waved away Merlin's protest. "So. How was…Mali, was it?"

"It was good. Hot. Dry."

"What part?"

"Dogon country."

"Erosion."

"What?"

"Climate change, remember? The Sahel is feeling the effects like anywhere else. Becoming drier, famines intensifying."

"Ah."

"It's your basic desertification. Deforestation from using wood for fuel less rain, more land degradation. Plus you've got a good two thirds of the population employed by the agricultural sector. Recipe for disaster."

"Yeah, I could see that."

They paused awkwardly.

"So," Merlin tried again. "Is there anything you don't know everything about?" He tried to keep his tone light, but he was a little irritated. His Arthur had long got over the need to show off; was this something he'd have to do all over again? This Arthur was no young kid; he was older than Merlin and had long left childhood behind.

"Nope," Arthur said, tossing back the last of his drink, making Merlin scowl even as the confidence made his stomach do strange things.

"Well," Arthur amended slyly, "I don't know everything about _you_."

Laughter forced its way from Merlin's throat. "Are you—"

"What?"

"Nothing." _Chatting me up?_

Arthur leaned in with a grin. "What? Tell me."

"No," Merlin insisted.

"Fine. Whatever you say." Arthur turned back to the telly with a cheerful grin.

They sat in silence again, pretending to watch the match, stealing glances at each other from the corner of their eyes. Arthur gestured to the bartender, who brought over two more drinks. Arthur Pendragon in any incarnation apparently only had to lift a finger to get things brought to him.

"I was born in a village called Ealdor," Merlin started, watching Arthur carefully for any sign of recognition.

"What?" Arthur said.

"You said you didn't know everything about me. Now you do. Born in Ealdor, likes to defend hapless airline agents from prats, writes about magic, can't hold his liquor." Merlin grinned widely. "End of story."

"No one's that boring."

"Hey," Merlin said, affronted.

"Anyway," Arthur continued, "Allow me to put you out of your misery. Yes."

"Yes?" Merlin asked.

"Yes, I am."

"You are what?"

"Whatever it is you thought I was doing," Arthur teased.

Merlin gaped.

"Unless you thought I was trying to give you a job, or something. That probably wouldn't work out, since you seem to know nothing about climate change." Arthur looked at his watch, then back to Merlin with a sigh. "You wouldn't want to work for me, would you?"

"I, no, I mean, what?" As if Merlin wasn't already confused enough. Why couldn't Arthur just remember? It was always awkward and ridiculous when you were getting to know someone. Especially when you already knew how they looked at their worst — after a parent's death, after a Queen's departure, after a dagger between the ribs.

Arthur laughed, having no such inner turmoil, and took a silver pen and a card from inside his jacket pocket. "Look, I've got to dash. Dinner with my father; he just got a promotion and he wants to celebrate. Far be it for me to disappoint the old man," he said, scribbling on the back on the card. "Here's my mobile."

Merlin took the offered card, flipped it over to look at the messy handwriting. His Arthur's script had been so studied. It had to be, for all that it adorned treaties and royal proclamations. When he looked back up at Arthur, Arthur was passing some notes to the server.

When Merlin took out his credit card, Arthur held up his hand. "I've got this," he said. "Don't worry."

"But now we're uneven again," Merlin said. In his other pocket, he clenched his fingers around the card with Arthur's mobile number, like a lifeline.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to meet for another round, won't we?" Arthur flashed a smile Merlin remembered well. It usually meant he was in for something very good, or very humiliating.

Merlin nodded, understanding blossoming in his chest. Arthur wanted to see him again. Somewhere inside, Arthur had to know.

* * *

"He mentioned his father. He's a professor, or something. I can't imagine Uther as a teacher."

"It's not Uther."

"What?"

"His father this time. It's not Uther, any more than your friend Renu is Guinevere."

Merlin was stunned. He'd wondered. "But…"

Morgana took a long drag of her cigarette.

"Ugh," Merlin said, waving away the smoke. "You shouldn't smoke."

Morgana looked up. "Cute, Merlin. I've been smoking since they started importing it from the colonies. If it _could_ kill me, I'd have smoked twice as much."

"You want to die?" Merlin was surprised.

"I've spent a thousand years watching my brother sleep, hanging out with three dead witches and a masochistic coward of a sorcerer — that's you, by the way—who keeps erasing his memory and needing a nursemaid. All because of a mistake from a long time ago, but the gods won't let me forget it. Hell yes, I want to die."

"But, there's still so much out there, isn't there?" Merlin supposed that was rich, coming from him.

"Exactly. And some of it, you can't get to unless you're dead."

"I'll pass for now. I've got things to do." He knew his expression had gone a little dreamy; he couldn't help it. It was _Arthur_.

Morgana rolled her eyes. "Oh god, I'd forgotten how nauseating the two of you are."

"Shut it. Anyway, you were saying something about shuffling off your mortal coil?"

"I see it sometimes, you know," Morgana said, stubbing out her cigarette.

"What?" Merlin thought Morgana's face seemed to grow troubled as she said it, and for the first time, he felt sorry that he'd never offered to give her a reprieve from the memories.

"In my dreams, I see it."

Merlin was intrigued in spite of himself. "What's it like?"

"Uther is there, and he's not gripped by fear and hatred. Gwen is there, and Lancelot too. They're together, even now. Gawain, and Perceval. Leon. My parents, and yours. Your friend Will, even. Remember how he saved Arthur that time?"

"And...do you think it is real?"

Morgana looked off into the distance, squinting at something only she could see. "I do. We just can't get there yet. Our magic is meant to do more."

"Arthur's not magic, and he's still here," Merlin pointed out.

"Yes, but magic is what _made_ Arthur's veins. And besides, he's the point of all of this. This world built itself around him, didn't it? Just — Gwen, Lancelot, Gawain, Leon, Uther — they all got the gift of being able to step off the wheel."

"What about us?"

"Us? We're stuck, until the gods decide to let us off. We can't cheat it — look what happens when you try," Morgana said, pointedly.

"So we're stuck."

"We're stuck," Morgana agreed. "For now. Of course, you can always start all over again. Stop agonising over that article like it matters at all. Forget all of this, and just fade away into obscurity. Leave this mess to Arthur. He won't know any different."

Merlin shook his head. "I would. And I'd just have to deal with you again, wouldn't I?"

Morgana smirked.

"Tell me," Merlin said after a while. "Why did you never try to forget, too? If this was so hard for you?"

Morgana lit another cigarette, but wouldn't meet Merlin's eyes. "Told you. I'm not a coward like you."

Merlin didn't buy it. "That's not it, though, is it?"

"Of course it is."

"You did want to," Merlin said, understanding dawning. "You're just not powerful enough to do it yourself."

Morgana glared. "No. And you never offered to help me. Another habit of yours."

Now it was Merlin's turn to look away, through the cloud of smoke that surrounded them. No one seemed to notice Morgana was smoking indoors, either. "Well, it's irrelevent now, I suppose."

Morgana just exhaled another stream of smoke. She didn't answer.

* * *

The transcripts from Merlin's voice recordings came the following day, and Merlin busied himself by highlighting the best bits for his article. Three of the books he'd requested at the library came through the library loan system, and he had three phone interviews to take care of as well; a follow-up with a theologian from Brazil, a researcher and expert on Jainism from India, and a new contact from Haiti who'd heard about the article and got in touch with Tom. She had heard that Americans (well, Pat Robertson, anyway) were blaming the Haiti earthquake on Voudou, and wanted to be sure the practise was treated fairly in the article.

Merlin hadn't planned on including it much at all, other than in connection with the influences of various African religions in the New World, but that was the problem. Huge topic, not enough space. He decided to do a section on different types of Voudou as practised in the colonised Americas: with the contributions from Claudette in New Orleans, his own research in Bahia, and this contact, he could sketch out a couple of paragraphs. It would barely skim the surface, but then at this rate, this whole article would barely skim the surface. Not for lack of in-depth knowledge, which, granted, he didn't have, but because the whole topic was so huge and _National Geographic_ wasn't going to see that what they needed wasn't a feature article but a book, or a DVD series.

Of course things _would_ pick up when he had something else on his mind all together, like Arthur's business card with its handwritten mobile number mocking him from where it sat on his coffee table.

Merlin wasn't stupid. He could tell Arthur was interested. Of course he was. He was still Arthur in there somewhere, and Arthur had noticed Merlin the first time they'd met in Camelot, too. They'd been drawn together from the very beginning, before either of them could assign words to what they were feeling.

Even still, it was hard. This Arthur didn't remember Merlin. As far as he knew, he was getting acquainted with a new person, checking to see if he wanted to get to know him better.

It was starting all over again, only this time, the rules were entirely different.

He'd left it up to Merlin to call him. Did that mean he was less interested than Merlin hoped? That he was actually passive? Or too self-absorbed to imagine Merlin _wouldn't_ call him? Were there a specific number of days Merlin should wait before calling? Should he feign a lack of interest to keep Arthur intrigued?

Should he withhold sex? Right. Like that was going to happen.

Still, why wasn't there a book or something? He could use some advice, and he couldn't see Renu taking this one on. She was smart, was Renu, but this would probably make her turn tail and run far, far away from Merlin and regret the day she ever befriended him at the student union bar during Fresher's week.

What he needed, basically, was _The Rules,_ adapted for those occasions when you discover you are immortal and that the man you loved a thousand years ago has been reborn and makes an overture without realising that you are, in fact, the other side of his coin.

He'd never seen a book like that in an airport bookstore, though.

The card sat there, waiting. Merlin started to key the number into his Blackberry, and each time he put it down before he could finish entering it, and returned to his article.

 

* * *

To: Amiri Baker ([amiri.baker@tepapa.govt.nz](mailto:amiri.baker@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Clarification

Hi Amiri,

Hope the weather's cooled a bit for you! Thanks again for your hospitality.

Could you remind me, what was the material that hei tiki you showed me was made from? The multicoloured shell? Also, I was wondering if you or someone on your staff might be willing to look at the parts of my draft article about New Zealand? Thanks so much for your help. If you're ever in London, we must get together.

 

* * *

 

By dinner time, he gave in and rang Arthur. He really was a weakling.

He got his voicemail.

"Oh. Hi, Arthur. This is Merlin, from, well, you know, the never ending Scotch buying cycle. You gave me your number, so I thought I would ring. Maybe we can have more Scotch. My number's 07756 993587. Yeah. Um. Bye?"

Merlin disconnected the call and let his forehead fall to the table with a loud _thump_.

 

* * *

 

Arthur didn't ring back that night, or the next day.

Merlin worked on his article, and tried not to be devastated. He'd waited a thousand years, right? Even if most of the time he'd made himself erase his own memory, over and over again, and really, he was going to have to figure out how he managed that, just for his own curiosity more than anything else. It wasn't like he wanted to do it again.

He couldn't anyway, as far as he could tell.

He still had gaps in what he could remember; his memories of Camelot were clear, and his memories of his lifetime spent as Merlin, London-based freelance journalist were clear, but the rest was murky. The crystal had helped fill in some highlights, but even that was...blurry.

Morgana rang to check in on him when Merlin was fixing his tea.

"So, did you see Arthur?"

"Yeah."

"And...?"

"And none of your business." Merlin switched ears. "Listen, Morgana, I have a question. I don't understand how this whole memory spell thing even worked. How did I remember to do it if I erased all my memories each time?"

Morgana sighed. "Bloody hell, Merlin. Do something on your own for once, won't you? I'm not going to spoon feed the lot to you."

"Why not?"

"Because I need a new pair of shoes, and then I'm going to get my highlights done."

"Bullshit."

"When in Rome, Merlin, one eats gelato and sleeps with fabulously sexy men and women. When in London, one buys shoes and makes up for the lack of sun with chemicals. I also make a fantastic cuppa."

"That's helpful to know, thank you. Now, about that spell..."

"No."

"Just—"

"No. You'll figure it out, Merlin. I have faith in you."

Merlin was so thrown by Morgana's vote of confidence that he missed having the last word.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Merlin forced himself to leave his flat and duck out for groceries like a normal human being. He could only live off tea and biscuits for so long before he went mad, or got scurvy, and the fresh air would do him good after a few days holed up with his research.

When he came back, he was greeted by a delivery man at his door.

"You Mr Emrys?" the man asked.

"That's me," Merlin said and shifted his bags to his left hand so he could sign for the parcel.

"Someone must really like you," the delivery man said. "That's some serious stuff in there."

"Thanks," Merlin said. He was intrigued. He hardly ever received parcels he wasn't expecting.

Humming with anticipation, Merlin unlocked his flat and dumped his groceries on the kitchen counter. He wrestled with the parcel until it came open.

Inside was a bottle of 30 year old, single-malt Ardbeg Scotch. Merlin didn't know a lot about Scotch whisky, but he knew it wasn't something offered down at the local.

A note fluttered down to his feet.

"Next round's on me. Cleary Gardens, tomorrow, 6 p.m.?"

Merlin's heart thudded heavily in his chest.

* * *

Arthur was there when Merlin arrived at five past six. He was sitting on a bench under the shade of a tree and reading a book. It was a warm day, and instead of the suit Merlin had only ever seen him in, he had on jeans, and a white tee-shirt that read "Burn Calories, Not Oil" in green letters on top of a grey long-sleeved shirt.

Merlin had to laugh.

"Nice shirt," he said as he approached.

Arthur's smile still did funny things to Merlin, he realised as Arthur set aside his book. "It seemed fitting," he said. "What with turning food waste into biofuel."

"You'll have to explain to me how that even works," Merlin said, dropping down next to Arthur on the bench. "I mean, it seems awfully simple."

"That simple process took me almost ten years to sort out, and it's still being perfected," Arthur pointed out. "Who knows if it will work, anyway?"

"I think it will work," Merlin said. This was Arthur. He saved the world; it was what he did. "Anyway. I brought the Scotch."

"Good, good. I've been dreaming about it all afternoon. Investor meetings can be so tedious."

"I looked this up, you know."

"Oh?" Arthur asked, innocently.

"Yeah. This is a _five hundred quid_ bottle of Scotch. Are you mental? I might have dropped it."

"You didn't, though," Arthur said, pulling two glasses from his leather messenger bag. Like everything else Arthur had that Merlin had seen, it was well made and expensive looking.

The glasses were followed by a larger bottle.

"Did you seriously bring a decanter to a park?" Merlin asked. "Could you be any more posh?"

"Oi. Stuff like this needs to be treated well," Arthur said, pouring some of the Scotch into the decanter. "We'll just let it breathe for a bit before we enjoy, alright?"

"Fine," Merlin said. "What do we do in the meantime?"

"I dunno. Talk? How was your day, Merlin?"

"Frustrating and tedious, with a side of neverending. Yours?"

"Absurd and exasperating," Arthur said. "Aren't we a pair."

Merlin looked around the small garden they were sat in. There was no one else around, and the shade trees were grouped so well he could barely tell that they were in the middle of a busy part of London.

"So," Merlin started. "Come here often?" At Arthur's sly look, he laughed. "Yeah, not what I meant, mate. It doesn't seem like that sort of park."

"No, probably not," Arthur said. "I was down at the London Development Agency after my meetings today. This is a good place to decompress after being suffocated by dim bureaucrats."

They both sat in silence, looking out over the park, at their feet, anywhere but each other.

"Sorry," Arthur said. "This is weird."

"Yeah, a little," Merlin said. "But I don't mind," he added. "Provided you pour soon."

"Just give it a few more minutes, peasant," Arthur said.

"Who are you calling peasant?"

"You. I looked up your hometown, you know. Ealdor? It's not even on a map. Ergo, you must be a peasant."

Merlin laughed along, his mind racing. Arthur was more curious than he used to be. Whereas once, he'd been confident he knew everything without even trying, this time he seemed to want to know everything he could.

Maybe...maybe eventually he'd get his hands on whatever it was that would make him remember Merlin.

If he was supposed to remember Merlin at all. Merlin shoved that thought to the back of his mind, and focussed on the man sat beside him. Renu had teased him about having a type, and he definitely did. None of them lived up to the real Arthur, though. Not even close.

"What?" Arthur said, after catching Merlin blatantly staring. He looked amused, and expectant, and for a moment Merlin was transported back to the early days, when he chased after Arthur with his arms full of armour or crossbolts. Not transported like a vision, though, more like a current of nostalgia that took up residence behind his solar plexus and just sat there, throbbing.

"Uh, well," Merlin stammered. "You know. Just wondering why, of all the people you've probably pissed off during the course of your worldwide adventures in cooling the planet, you chose me to share a rare bottle of Scotch with. I mean, there must be all sorts of people in your life who deserve 500 quid-a-bottle, 30 year Islay single malt Scotch, and you only just met me. And you didn't seem, you know...interested... in Paris and, oh fucking hell, could you just pour? Please?"

Subtle, Merlin. Really subtle.

Arthur's eyes raked over Merlin's form, and nostalgia was replaced by lust for a second, there. The smile on Arthur's face turned smug, it was almost a smirk, and Merlin probably should have been offended but he was too busy metaphorically melting into a puddle of goo and dripping off the bench to be too annoyed.

A thousand years was a _really_ long time, and Merlin became aware of one part of him that was definitely not melting. Quite the opposite.

"Sorry," Arthur said. "Was there an actual question in there?"

"Scotch," Merlin said, taking up one of the glasses and holding it out. "Please."

Arthur's smile was almost fond as he poured out a finger of Scotch into Merlin's glass. Merlin knocked it back in one gulp.

"Whoa," Arthur said. "A little slower, yeah?"

"I don't like going slow," Merlin blurted.

"Oh. Well. Okay, then." Arthur reached over and took Merlin's glass out of his hand, and set it down carefully next to the decanter and his yet-empty glass. When he turned back to Merlin, he had that expression on his face again. The expectant one. The one that made Merlin...

"Mmmph," Merlin said, as Arthur leaned over to kiss him.

He let his eyes drift shut as Arthur's lips moved over his. It was soft, teasing, nothing like their first kiss had been after Merlin had defeated Morgause's army. He felt Arthur's hand fist in his tee-shirt to draw him closer, and for a minute, Merlin could pretend that Arthur knew who he was, that he was as desperate for this as Merlin was, that he too had been sublimating it all because he couldn't stomach the loneliness from living without the other side of his coin.

When Arthur pulled away, Merlin followed, chasing Arthur's lips until he felt two strong hands on his shoulders, holding him in place. He blinked lazily.

"All right?" Arthur asked.

"Yeah," Merlin breathed. "Why?"

"You were off in your own world there, it looked like." Arthur wasn't looking at him any differently. So much for true love's kiss, Kilgharrah. Bastard reptile.

"Was I?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe I was just enjoying myself," Merlin said. He darted his tongue out to the corner of his mouth, and watched Arthur's jaw twitch the slightest little bit.

"Were you?"

"Do it again and see for yourself," Merlin suggested, feeling bolder.

"There's someone just arrived," Arthur said, nodding over to the gates where a woman and her dog were striding in.

Dammit.

"Are you pouting?" Arthur said. "Here. I'll make it up to you." He poured some more of the Ardbeg, two fingers into each glass, before passing one to Merlin.

"Remember, drink it slowly. This stuff is meant to be savoured," Arthur told him.

"There's other things I would rather be savouring," Merlin muttered, but he brought the glass to his lips and took a sip, letting it sit in his mouth for a moment. Arthur did the same, but his eyes never left Merlin's mouth.

"So. How did you find out where I lived?" Merlin asked.

"What?"

"To send me the Scotch. How did you find out where I lived?"

"You're not that hard to track down once you know where to look."

"What, did you bribe someone or something?"

"No. I called your editor."

"Tom?" Merlin said.

"Yeah, that's him. I had his card from the profile they did on me. He was awfully willing to give out your address. You might want to talk to him about that."

"Right, I'll do that."

"Although he did mention you'd asked about mine as well."

"He...uh, what?"

"He said you were looking for me," Arthur said with a grin. "Was that the meeting that drove you to drink and into my local?"

Merlin could feel a blush spreading over his cheeks. "I don't know what...oh fuck it. Yes. I was looking for you.

Arthur leaned back against the bench with his arms behind his neck. "It's okay, you know. I don't mind."

"Very charitable of you," Merlin said, still embarrassed. "So, apparently we've both made asses of ourselves, trying to find the other."

"Speak for yourself. I never make an ass out of myself."

Merlin raised his eyebrows. "No, Friday morning coach class is _not_ acceptable!" he recited in an artificially posh voice. "I am very important and also very rich, you peasants!"

Arthur just narrowed his eyes, and wrapped his arms protectively around the bottle. "Well, perhaps I'll take my arse and my posh Scotch and stop torturing you with my presence."

Merlin's face fell. "No, Arthur, don't—"

"Joke, Merlin. Relax."

"Right. Sorry."

"What's with you? You seem jumpy or something. This not what you wanted?"

"No!" Merlin rushed to say. "I mean, yes, this is what I want. Especially the earlier part. We can go back to that any time," he finished.

"Not if our neighbour here doesn't bugger off soon," Arthur whispered. The woman and her dog seemed in no rush to leave the park.

"I bet she'd leave if you kissed me again," Merlin said.

"That, or she'd ring the police," Arthur said. "And then I'd end up on the cover of more magazines."

"It's not illegal to kiss people, you know."

"Nope. But what I'd do after that is definitely illegal. In public, anyway."

Merlin tossed back the last of his Scotch. "Maybe we should go someplace more private, then?"

"We could," Arthur said. "But..."

Merlin's heart sank. "But what?"

"I've a flight to Dublin at six from bloody Gatwick."

Merlin looked at his watch. "That's ages away. You've still got ten hours, at least."

Arthur chuckled. "Yeah, but I need to pack, and the car is coming at four, and, well..." he looked Merlin up and down again. "Some things need to be savoured, like I said."

"Bloody hell," Merlin said. He wanted to whimper. "So, how long are you gone for?"

"Just 'til Friday."

"Any plans for Friday night?"

"Just you," Arthur said.

"You're very sure of yourself. Maybe I have a date already lined up."

"Do you?"

"Nope."

"Okay, then. Friday night it is. Bring the Ardbeg." Arthur collected the glasses and the decanter into his bag, then passed the bottle over to Merlin.

As they made their way to the park entrance, Merlin turned to look at Arthur. "So, do I just sit around and wait for you on Friday night like a spinster or something?"

"I'll pick you up. About seven? Wear something nice."

"Oh, are you taking me on a date?" Merlin asked. "I feel very wined and dined."

"Well, I do like to do things properly," Arthur said.

"I can tell."

"How're you getting home?" Arthur asked him.

"Tube."

"You sure? I could send for a car?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "You're the posh one. I've been riding the Tube for decades, mate. It'll be fine."

"Decades? You can't be more than thirty, Merlin."

"I'm not," Merlin said. "I just...used to ride it to get to school. You know."

"I thought you grew up in a village no one's heard of."

"I did. Just...we moved here. When I was still in school."

"Oh, I see," Arthur said, but he still looked suspicious.

"Anyway, riding the Tube is environmentally responsible until cars start running off Excalibur and not petrol," Merlin teased.

Arthur laughed, and his confusion seemed to melt away. "Right you are. Well, Merlin, I must say, I enjoy each of our meetings more than the last. Of course, given the first, that's not saying much."

He held out a hand, and Merlin took it and used it to pull Arthur close, not caring if anyone was watching. He leaned in and kissed Arthur hard, all tongue and teeth and stubble, and when he pulled back, Arthur was panting, his mouth bruised.

Merlin could wait a few more days, he thought, as Arthur turned and started down the street.

* * *

To: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
Subject: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

\--

To: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
From: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

No. It's Wednesday, still. How did you get this address?

\--

To: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

I remembered you had a Blackberry in Paris. From there, all it took was a little bribery.

\--

To: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
From: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

Meetings really boring?

\--

To: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

Yes. Entertain me, peasant.

\--

To: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
From: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

Fine. Want to know a secret?

\--

To: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)

Sure. Hit me.

\--

To: Arthur Pendragon ([Arthur@pendragon.co.uk](mailto:excaliburbiofuels@gmail.com))  
From: Emrys, Merlin W. ([merlinemrys@tmo.blackberry.co.uk](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Is it Friday Yet? (EOM)  
Attachments: [Arthurs-Amazing-Arse-Airport1.jpg](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/1762.html)

 

* * *

_You have three new voice messages. To hear new message, press seven._

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd pick up, you coward. I cannot BELIEVE you actually WERE taking photos of my arse. And I felt GUILTY for being a jerk to YOU? You really are a complete idiot, aren't you, Merlin??

* * *

"Right. I forgive you, though. I mean, I do have an incredible arse."

* * *

"Um, sorry, forgot to ask. We're still on for Friday, right? I take back the part where I called you a complete idiot if you want."

_To repeat this message, press nine._

Merlin pressed nine at least a dozen times, and pretended not to hear Arthur's voice in the back of his head chiding him for being such a girl.

* * *

 

Merlin spent far more time than he should have done in sorting out what exactly constituted something "nice" to wear.

On the one hand, Arthur's suits looked bespoke and he wore cufflinks whilst flying, the freak. On the other hand, he could fill out a pair of faded jeans and a treehugger tee-shirt with the best of them. What did he mean by _wear something nice_, anyway?

Hopefully, not a hat with feathers.

It would help if he would tell Merlin where they were going, but Arthur was decidedly silent on that point when Merlin had emailed him to get more details.

Sometimes, during the interminable wait for Friday, Merlin wondered at how...well, easy this had been. Just having been in the right place at the right time to stand up for someone being bullied; he hadn't known who Arthur was, or what he had once meant to Merlin.

Then again, he hadn't known the first time, either.

It had been so easy to find him. Had Merlin remembered a few years ago, there would be no Arthur on covers of magazines; he'd just be your typical entrepreneur/innovator, working until all hours of the night on some mad scheme that may never pay off.

"Why now?" Merlin had asked Morgana. "He's been alive for a good thirty or so years by now. Why do I remember, now?"

"I'm not your agony aunt," Morgana had said. "Must you be spoon fed everything?"

"You wanted me to remember; you practically orchestrated it. So don't start moaning at me because you got what you want. Man up."

"Look, Merlin. Why now? Why not now? Why did things happen the way they did before? Why are they happening this way now? We could come up with a million reasons why but they are just as likely to be true as any of those myths you're writing about for your article."

"But—"

"Have you done any magic yet?" Morgana asked, changing the subject.

"I— what? Um, yeah, sure."

"Liar. You haven't even tried yet, have you?"

"I don't want to." Merlin hadn't really realised it until he said it aloud, but it was true.

"You don't want to?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's sort of nice, isn't it? Not having to think so much about it. Just...not doing it."

"You think you can get away without your magic in this lifetime? What if Arthur needs it?"

"Why would Arthur need my magic?"

"I'm pretty sure saving the world is going to require some sort of magical intervention. Really, have you been paying attention? These people are fucked."

"If they are, I doubt magic will help them. Didn't do us a fat lot of good last time, did it?"

"It got us here, to do it again, didn't it? Stop being a bloody coward, Merlin. Find your magic."

* * *

 

"Something nice" turned out to be a cashmere jumper and trousers without pen stains on the pockets. Merlin even wore shoes without treaded soles.

"Going all out, here, aren't you?" Renu had teased when he rang her to discuss the merits of shirt versus jumper.

"I'm _not_," Merlin had said, but yeah, he was.

Arthur showed up at his flat right on time. Someone must have let him in because he didn't press the entry buzzer, just knocked on Merlin's door.

When Merlin heard the knock, his stomach flip-flopped in a particularly aggravating way. Merlin mentally mocked himself for it, but he nearly fell over his feet in his haste to get to the door.

Arthur was leaning in the doorway, looking for all the world like he owned the entire block of flats. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, and Merlin might have whimpered a little bit, had he not realised he was overdressed.

"You said to wear something nice," he said, skipping the greeting.

Arthur stretched lazily. "Hello to you too, Merlin. May I come in?"

Merlin backed away to let Arthur in, and tried not to freak out too much as Arthur surveyed his lounge with a curious expression.

"Nice place," Arthur said. "Is that my address on the wall?"

Bugger. He hadn't got around to painting over it yet.

"Oh, and this is for you." Arthur passed Merlin a folded paper bag. Merlin set it aside without opening it. "It's from Ireland."

"Thanks. Now, what the fuck is with the jeans? You said to wear something nice," Merlin repeated, and then flushed even more as Arthur very deliberately looked him up and down.

"Maybe I just wanted to see what your idea of nice is," Arthur said, turning away from a collection of photographs to look back at Merlin. "And I must say, it _is_ very nice."

Merlin gaped. "God, you're a prat."

Arthur laughed and strode over to clap Merlin on the shoulder. "Indeed I am. But really, you look great. But... I don't suppose you've got a tracksuit and tee-shirt around somewhere?"

"Er, yes? Don't most people?" Merlin said, not following Arthur's line of thought.

"Good, mine are the car. You grab yours. Some trainers too, maybe a towel?"

Trainers. A towel. Merlin couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Sorry, are we going to be _working out_? I thought this was a date."

"It is a date, Merlin, and one I guarantee you will never forget."

"Well, I've no doubt of that."

"So get your stuff," Arthur said. "Unless, that is— you don't think you can handle it."

"Oh, I can handle it, you—"

Arthur held up a hand. "Humour me, would you? You won't regret it."

 

* * *

 

Merlin regretted it. He'd envisioned a nice sweaty climb for his date with Arthur, but he'd been thinking metaphorically.

Arthur, apparently, had been thinking literally.

"Come on, Merlin," he shouted down at Merlin, who was a good two yards below him, suspended on the climbing wall.

"It's harder than it looks!" Merlin said through gritted teeth. He was managing to keep his hold on the wall as they scaled it, but only just.

Who the fuck decides to go wall-climbing on a first date?

Arthur Pendragon, apparently. Who proceeded to scale another section of the wall in double time, effortlessly impersonating Peter Parker, and looking down at Merlin with a smug grin.

"Oh, now you're just showing off," Merlin shouted up, but he couldn't help but smile at the memory of a different climb in a different life.

"See, you're enjoying yourself," Arthur said, waiting for Merlin to catch up. On the drive over, he'd gone on about how he'd got into rock climbing in South Africa as an exchange student, and now made a point of climbing every week. One day, he hoped to scale Mount Roraima, in South America.

Better Arthur than Merlin. "M'not."

"Are so."

Just then, Merlin felt his grip on the handhold slip— his hands always did get sweaty, and he stumbled. He should have fallen, should have ended up hanging from his harness and bumping into the fake rocks that protruded enough to bruise knees and elbows, but instead he felt, for a moment, like time had slowed down.

Oh.

He reached for the magic, again, to see if he could feel power start to pool in his hands, but it was gone.

After their rock climb, they showered and changed, and Merlin tried not to drool too hard at the way Arthur casually stripped off and strutted around naked through the changing room. He looked...well, he looked exactly how Arthur had looked at thirty; fit and broad and gorgeous.

As he always had, Merlin tried not to feel too self-conscious; he knew this Arthur probably felt the same way about his body as Arthur once had. Merlin was stronger than he looked; he had managed to pin Arthur on more than one occasion, granted, Arthur had wanted to be pinned but that was semantics, really.

When Merlin looked back over at Arthur, Arthur quickly looked away. He'd been checking Merlin out, and it was all Merlin needed to chuck his towel over his shoulder and wait for a nice long pause before he began dressing in his street clothes again.

They went to a restaurant afterwards, a trendy place that made Merlin glad he had worn something nice after all. Arthur could get away with jeans. He looked like a film star no matter what he wore. Merlin needed more assistance from his clothing.

They'd been halfway through the starter they were sharing when Merlin looked up to thank their waiter for the extra sauce he'd brought and saw them.

Morgana. And with her— _Jesus Christ_— were Morgause, Freya, and Nimueh.

The four sisters, literally in some legends, figuratively in reality, who bore Arthur to Avalon. And they were headed right for their table.

"Hello, Merlin," Morgana said in greeting. She was wearing a jeans and a halter top, with her hair piled loosely atop her head.

Merlin smiled weakly, as he knew Arthur was watching. "Morgana," he greeted her. Arthur looked at him expectantly, and so he waved a hand. "Morgana and I met in India."

"On his research trip to my ashram," she added, and Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"Ashram?" Arthur asked, looking intrigued. "Did you do... yoga?"

Merlin groaned. "Can we not go there?"

"Are you very flexible, Merlin?" Arthur asked, and the girls all laughed. Except Morgause, who seemed to have a permanent scowl.

"I'm Arthur, by the way," Arthur said, standing. He held out his hand to Morgana, and when she took it, he brought her hand to his lips. "It's an honour to meet you."

Arthur might have missed the haunted expression that briefly passed over Morgana's features, but Merlin didn't. She recovered quickly, though, waving a hand at the others.

"This is my sister Morgause, and our friends Nimueh and Freya," Morgana said. One by one, they took Arthur's hand, and one by one Merlin held his breath to see if Arthur would react at all. He didn't.

"We're just grabbing some dinner before we go out tonight," Morgana elaborated. "We've got a hen 'do later tonight."

"A hen 'do! Will there be matching tee-shirts and tiaras?"

"Oh yes," Nimueh chimed. "And lots of wine."

"I can't wait to let my hair down," Morgause said.

"And you, Freya, was it?" Arthur said.

Freya smiled shyly; she never held a grudge against Arthur, although she had more than one reason to. "I'm the designated driver."

"You have very responsible friends, Merlin," Arthur said, and Merlin didn't bother to correct him.

"Anyway," Morgana said, breezily. "We should be going."

Merlin rose. "Wait. Morgana, do you have a minute?"

Morgana shrugged a bare shoulder.

"We'll just be a moment," Merlin told Arthur. "Be right back."

He and Morgana walked outside. Merlin didn't think anything of leaving Arthur with Morgause, Nimueh, and Freya, which he had to admit, was pretty funny in hindsight. But he needed to do this with Morgana.

They picked their way around the smokers and the people yelling into their mobiles until they had semi-privacy, near the alley.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Merlin ground out, taking Morgana by the elbow. "A hen 'do? _Really_?"

Morgana wrenched her arm away. "You know, Merlin, it meant something to me to see him too."

"You've been able to see him whenever you like!"

"But not like this."

"Like what?"

"He's so...alive. Himself. It's..."

Merlin sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is."

Morgana gestured at the window, where they could see Arthur trying to charm the others. If he only knew. "It's not the same for them. For them he was an enemy, a pawn, or a nuisance. For me, though..."

"He was an enemy and a nuisance to you, too."

"Maybe. He was also my first kiss, and later, like a brother. Sometimes he was even my friend."

"And on one occasion, you brought about his death."

Morgana paled. "You bastard." But she didn't deny it.

"Where is Mordred, anyway?" Merlin said. "He was magic. Why isn't he here for the party?"

Morgana looked down, her lip caught between her teeth. When she finally spoke, her voice was anguished.

"Mordred was never meant to be part of this story. And he wouldn't have been if it weren't for you."

"Yet you're the one who gave him the knife."

"He was just a child."

"Not by then," Merlin said with a glower.

"He wasn't supposed to be Arthur's end. He wouldn't have been had you not brought him to my chamber and begged me to help. Nothing after that would have happened."

Lovely. A circle of blame. But one thing caught Merlin's attention. "What do you mean, he wasn't supposed to be Arthur's end?"

"Arthur would have died his destined death if it weren't for what we did. All of us, even Arthur for taking him back to the Druids. Because of that, we're stuck until we get it right."

"But not Mordred himself?"

"It wasn't his fault."

"He made his choices."

"And we're paying the price while he moved on right away."

They both stood in awkward silence, until Morgana regained her composure.

"Look, I need to go. I don't need to sit around and watch you and Arthur make eyes at each other all evening. I just ate."

Merlin grinned, and felt a little evil. "Are we making eyes? I hadn't realised."

"Grow up."

"Jealous?"

"Bugger off, Merlin." But she didn't deny it.

"What was that all about?" Arthur asked when Merlin returned to the table.

"Oh," Merlin fumbled his napkin back into his lap, "I had a question about something we learned at the ashram. You know— for work."

"Oh."

Their server set down plates of food in front of them just then— mussels in spicy tomato for Arthur; lamb for Merlin— before topping off their wine from the bucket.

"So how's that going?" Arthur asked. "Your thing about myths and magic?"

"What? Oh, my article? It's going okay. It's a lot to synthesise."

"Is it?" Arthur asked. "I'd have thought it a pretty simple, actually."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, travel around, ask a bunch of questions, write it all up and then, voila, you get an advanced copy with your name in nice, shiny letters."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Merlin said. "I suppose to create biofuel you just stick a bunch of plants in a machine that mimics fossilisation and set it on turbo?"

Arthur pulled a face. "Well, not exactly, but close enough."

"Really? I was just kidding." He ducked as Arthur swatted at him with exasperation.

"No, not really, you idiot," Arthur said with an affectionate grin. "Anyway, how's your food?"

"Good." Merlin speared a piece of lamb. "Want some?" he asked. He held the fork out towards Arthur, who raised an eyebrow before slowly moving forward and wrapping his lips around the fork. When he finished chewing, he sat back with a smirk.

Merlin didn't even pretend to not be mesmerised. "Don't mind me whilst I inhale the rest of this in record time, okay?"

"By all means," Arthur said, and brushed a finger down Merlin's hand. "I'd hate to be stuck here too much longer when there are other things we might be doing."

 

* * *

 

It was hardly surprising they would do this now. Merlin wasn't exactly going to resist, and Arthur...Arthur still seemed quite accustomed to getting what he wanted, and judging from the way his hands cupped Merlin's arse, he wanted Merlin.

It hadn't even been a question, after their rock climbing and their dinner, and for once, Merlin hadn't even considered bristling at the presumption. Arthur hadn't even offered to drop Merlin at home, just driven them to his enormous flat in Hampstead and gestured for Merlin to go inside ahead of him. Merlin had felt Arthur's eyes on his back; he'd been eying him all evening like he was a particularly choice delicacy.

Merlin had got a glimpse of shining hardwood, white walls, and a shelf full of photo frames of people— the loving family and big circle of friends Arthur never really had in Camelot— before Arthur had come up behind him and all but tackled him onto the massive leather sofa that dominated one wall. After that, Merlin suddenly lost interest in finding out how much Arthur's taste in interior design had changed and was far more interested in seeing how much of his considerable talents he'd retained, hanging out in Avalon for a millennium or so.

It wasn't effortless. Merlin nearly brained Arthur with his elbow, twice, and Arthur accidentally bit Merlin's tongue and made him yelp like Gaius when Merlin accidentally stepped on his tail. Finally, they'd just collapsed to the sofa in laughter.

"So. How do you want to do this?" Arthur asked.

Merlin leaned back so he could see Arthur's face. His hair stuck up where Merlin had grabbed it, and his mouth was red and slick.

"So many ways," he breathed. He couldn't seem to stop running his hands over Arthur's still-mostly-clothed body.

"How do you want to do this on this particular occasion, then?" Arthur said.

Merlin was overwhelmed with possibilities. Even knowing this was going to happen— it was so obvious, destiny and history repeating itself and _of course_ they were going to get there. They were always going to get here; it was as inevitable as it ever was but that didn't diminish the anticipation Merlin felt, the desperation. From Arthur's perspective this was probably a tidy little romance— meet cute, meet cuter, a few days of coy, a first kiss, and first date, and a fuck— but for Merlin, this was, well, this was _everything_.

 

> _Merlin's legs fell down off Arthur's shoulders and onto the bed; a ticking of straw wrapped it thick wool on the floor of their tent. The knights were up and about; foot soldiers were packing up their things and preparing to move out. Mordred's army was close._
> 
> "Gods," Merlin breathed.
> 
> "Something to remember me by," Arthur joked, stroking Merlin's bare thigh.
> 
> "That's not funny," Merlin said.
> 
> "No, it's not." Arthur began pulling on his clothes.
> 
> Merlin took over, messing with the ties at Arthur's neck. "You'll beat him. For good this time. And then we're coming back here and I am going to do you what you just did to me, only for twice as long and twice as good."
> 
> Arthur shivered. "Is that right?"
> 
> "Yes, that's right. So don't even think about it." Merlin said. "The next time we're alone together after this, I'm going to fuck you so hard you see stars. Sire."
> 
> "Well, how could I resist that?" Arthur said. "It's a deal."

 

"I want to fuck you." Merlin wasn't sure how he made himself say it, only that he needed it as much as he needed air and food and water.

Arthur's breath hitched at that, and he carefully extricated himself from under Merlin before he nodded toward the hall. "Bedroom's this way," he said, offering Merlin a hand.

Merlin followed Arthur to the bedroom, crowding behind him so that once they were inside, Merlin could push Arthur toward the bed with a hand on the small of his back.

"Mmm. Impatient are we?" Arthur asked, looking over his shoulder. His grin was still cocky, but he shivered when Merlin leaned in close, his lips brushing Arthur's ear.

"Where's your stuff?" Merlin asked.

"You _are_ impatient," Arthur replied, but he grabbed what they needed from a drawer in his press and passed them to Merlin.

"Not impatient," Merlin said. "Focussed. I don't like to be interrupted once I start working." He didn't add that he was pretty sure he'd be so lost in the moment that the likelihood of his forgetting about the condoms entirely was pretty high. They were hardly a part of their usual routine in Camelot.

"And here I thought you just couldn't wait to get your hands on me."

"I can't. On you, in you, all of it."

"Shit," Arthur breathed. "Yeah."

"Now," Merlin said, reaching for the buttons on Arthur's shirt, "where were we?"

When Arthur's hands came up to help Merlin with the buttons, he brushed them away. They had a quick tussle but Arthur seemed to get the hint when after a moment he simply let his arms fall to the side so that Merlin could peel away his clothes, slowly, carefully, like he had done it a thousand times before.

Which he had, only not quite like this, and the differences were enough to keep Merlin from falling so far into the past that he was lost. Buttons on the right, slipped through button holes, parting over finely woven cotton. That went off over the head, and if Merlin let his hands map Arthur's stretched arms, it was only to reacquaint himself with his favourite terrain.

Zippers now, instead of laces, but curious hands could slip down the front all the same, and Merlin flicked his thumb over the slick spot on the underside of Arthur's cock just to see if it caused the same delightful hitch in his breath. It did. Of course it did, and Merlin had to stop what he was doing and just leaned his forehead against Arthur's, eyes pressed closed, just to get his balance.

"Merlin?"

"Mmm?"

"Alright?"

Merlin beamed. "I'm brilliant. You?"

"Fantastic, provided you aren't falling asleep on me and get on with it."

Oh, right. Merlin opened his eyes again and Arthur was looking at him quizzically, half undressed by the side of the bed. Moonlight, or the light of a streetlamp, filtered in through Arthur's blinds, and they were half in light, half in dark.

Merlin slid Arthur's trousers and boxers down over his hips, letting them pool on the floor, then held himself steady as Arthur used his shoulders to balance on one foot, then the other, so he could toe out of his shoes and step out of them until he was completely naked.

"You've fallen behind again," Arthur said in a hush. "Need some help with those?"

Merlin shook his head in the darkness. "No," he clarified. "Move into the light. Let me look at you."

Arthur moved over a bit, and Merlin could see him better. "This isn't going to work if you have your clothes on, you know. Unless you're planning on making them disappear with magic or something."

Merlin heartbeat stuttered. "Magic?" he asked, thickly.

"Well, you are on the expert on it, writing that article," Arthur said.

"Oh," Merlin said, laughing. "Of course. No, no magic, sorry." Once again, Merlin became a liar. He could still feel it, shimmering under his skin. If he could only grab it, control it, he could do so many things. It scared him, the same way it had scared him as a child and he never knew when a flare of temper or a pang of loneliness would turn into broken crockery or birds following him whilst he did his chores.

He settled for pushing Arthur down until he sat on the edge of the bed, and then stepped back to peel his cashmere jumper off over his head. He shucked off his trousers, and the rest of it, just as quickly, and for a moment Arthur looked disappointed, as if he were expecting more of a show.

Merlin would take care of his disappointment soon enough.

One he was as naked as Arthur, Merlin walked over to stand between the sprawl of Arthur's legs. He tossed the condoms and lube on the bed next to Arthur, which Arthur seemed to take as his hint to lie back.

Merlin straddled his knees on either side of Arthur's hipbones and ran both his hands down Arthur's chest. When Arthur's breath whooshed out of him, Merlin leaned forward to kiss him, hot and slippery and a little messy.

"Roll over," he said. "On your belly."

Arthur went without question, simply grabbing a pillow and shoving it under his hips, and Merlin was confused by Arthur's compliance. Not that Arthur didn't always end up complying, but he was usually a little more vocal about it.

Merlin would have to work on that. He warmed some lube up in his hands, and instead of going straight for the kill, he slid his hands up Arthur's back, kneading the muscles there, pressing out the knots and stiffness from the exertion of the wall climbing. Merlin used to do this, when Arthur was still Crown Prince, and the movements, the knowledge of all the dips and clenches of Arthur's back, came back to him at once.

Arthur moaned, and Merlin forced himself to snap back to the present.

"Okay?" Merlin asked. "You're so tense."

Arthur's response was entirely non-verbal, which Merlin took to be a good thing as he kneaded down either side of Arthur's spine. With each pass of his hands, he strayed lower, and lower, until most of the massage focussed on Arthur's (indeed, magnificent) arse. Over and over Merlin massaged the muscles until, finally, he began letting his fingers slip deeper into the cleft each time and Arthur was pushing back against him.

"Any day now," Arthur muttered, but he was breathless when he said it, and Merlin wasn't about to be rushed anyway.

"Now who's impatient?" Merlin leaned over to drag his mouth down Arthur's back, to press a wet kiss to his tailbone.

"Just get on with— oh."

Merlin worked two slippery fingers into Arthur, crooking his fingers and finding the spot right away. Arthur stiffened in shock then arched his back into Merlin's touch, pushing back until he was fucking himself on Merlin's fingers, and Merlin nearly wept at the sight.

Instead, he merely withdrew, smeared more lube around Arthur's hole and the head of his own cock, and pushed forward until he was all the way inside, draped over Arthur's back and overcome with the heat and pressure that was Arthur surrounding him.

He nosed behind Arthur's ear, Arthur's hair tickling his nose and making him want to laugh, or maybe that was just the sheer joy of a thousand year old promise on its way to being kept.

"Ready?" he breathed into the shell of Arthur's ear before tonguing along the rim.

Arthur nodded his head and sought out Merlin's mouth blindly, twisted his head until they could kiss, hungry, as Merlin began sliding out, so slowly, only to push back in double time, each thrust forcing the breath from Arthur's lungs, each sharp exhalation punctuated with loud moans at first, then soft whimpers.

It went a little too quickly for Merlin's taste, but then, a full day of this wouldn't be enough. He supposed he could be forgiven for how long he'd been waiting.

When Merlin felt himself get close, when he couldn't stand the pressure any longer, he reached around to wrap a hand around Arthur's cock. He let his fingers skate over the slippery head, whispering "come on, come on, Arthur, do it" low and filthy into Arthur's ear, delighting in the way Arthur moaned in response.

Merlin managed to hold on until Arthur came. As soon as he felt Arthur jerking in his hands, he let himself thrust once, twice, a final time, and then, for the first time in weeks, there was nothing.

"Bloody hell," Arthur said, eventually.

"Alright?" Merlin asked.

A smile pulled at the corner of Arthur's lips, and he gave a wordless nod.

Merlin loved this, loved seeing Arthur fucked out and boneless, and how on earth had he lived so long without it? He thought back to earlier boyfriends, flings, and casual shags. He'd always known they were lacking something, but he'd never known how much until now.

They lay, side-by-side, their breaths panting in counterpoint until Arthur lazily rolled his head to look at Merlin.

"Have we met before and I just don't remember?" he asked. He still sounded a little breathless.

Merlin's breath caught in his throat. "What do you mean?" he asked, carefully.

Arthur ran a palm over his face, over his hair. "I just mean...well, I've fucked a lot of people in my time."

"Likewise," Merlin said, and tried not to be too jealous. It wasn't Arthur's fault.

"Yeah, I could tell," Arthur said, trailing a hand down Merlin's chest. He sounded quite satisfied. "But not the point. The point is, I have shagged a lot of people, some for decent stretches of time at that, and..."

"...and?"

Arthur frowned. "Just...well, none of them ever knew all the buttons to push right away, you know?" He rolled over onto his side, to face Merlin. "I mean, you seemed to be able to, I don't know, read my mind or something."

"Maybe I'm just a sex god," Merlin said. He tried to keep his hope and panic off his face, and instead trailed his fingers up Arthur's bare arm, watching him shiver.

"See?" Arthur said.

"See what?"

"You're doing it again."

"Sorry."

Arthur laughed. "Don't be sorry. Just keep doing it." He shifted, and pulled a face at the stickiness. "Ugh. Where are my tissues?"

Merlin sat up in bed and rubbed Arthur's shoulder. "Need the loo. I'll grab some."

Merlin stepped over into the ensuite. It was easily the size of his entire bedroom in his own modest flat, shining with chrome and porcelain and an enormous claw-foot tub that was sure to be useful.

There were flannels under the sink, so he grabbed one and wet it with warm water. When he looked in the mirror, he could see the longing and the secrets and the desperation writ so plainly into every crease in his skin, every pore, that he wondered how Arthur didn't see it and know.

He splashed cold water on his face, trying to recover some of his balance.

It seemed he was destined to keep a secret from Arthur again. He hoped it wouldn't be for long.


	3. In Which Merlin is Lost and Confused, But It All Works Out Anyway

**BOOK III: IN WHICH MERLIN IS LOST AND CONFUSED, BUT IT ALL WORKS OUT FOR THE BEST**

> Union or Division?
> 
> Globalization. We associate it with business, with politics, but it has had a profound impact on the magic and myths that influence modern society. Colonization played its part, as well. The West African Yoruba were imprisoned and enslaved; their belief systems formed the basis for a over a dozen belief systems across the Americas that combined these traditions with the Christianity enforced upon them. Traditional healing practices from China, Japan, India and Native Americans are prized by wealthy westerners who flock to ashrams and meditation classes and perform yoga asanas by the millions, to the alarm of the Catholic Church and many allopathic medicine practitioners.
> 
> At its best, proponents say, this union of mythologies fosters cross-cultural understanding. At its worst, it can decontextualize sacred practices until the origins are all but forgotten. How many people who wear the _hei matau_, henna tattoos, or a warrior's headdress to a music festival have chosen to do so because they even know their significance in the first place? What impact will this have on civilization hundreds of years from now? Will it strengthen them, interject them with new energy so they are remembered? Or will they simply dilute into eventual irrelevance? How will the magic endure?
> 
> -Merlin Emrys, "Magic and Myth: How They Shape Civilizations." _National Geographic_, November 2010.

 

~*~

 

Merlin wasn't sure if it was coincidence or deliberate, some joke of the gods who seemed to enjoy messing him around, but the next morning, he woke up with a whole new set of memories, ones that felt like repeated kicks to the gut. It was like his reunion with Arthur had opened a door in his mind that he'd never even seen before.

A door to a history of the lifetimes he'd spent waiting for Arthur in increasing desperation before he'd got so desperate that he preferred to eliminate it all.

Arthur was still asleep, splayed out on his back like a starfish; almost like someone not accustomed to sharing his bed. He'd be asleep for hours; once Merlin had returned from his panic attack in the loo, they'd gone two more rounds before collapsing into sleep, and Arthur had been out of town working all week. He had to be knackered.

That was good, because Merlin was in no shape for pillow talk. He had to get out of Arthur's flat. He scrawled a note, apologising for leaving without waking him but he looked like he needed sleep, and promising to ring him later.

He all but ran to the Tube, barely paying attention to the streets he passed, the turns he made. He was fleeing blind, as he had done long ago.

When Merlin left Albion behind, he'd sailed to the continent, to the Holy Land, to lands where Merlin was an oddity, even more of an oddity than he already was, met by curious eyes and sometimes hostile gazes. He had lost Arthur, had only magic to comfort him, and so he set out to find more magic.

In the lifetimes before he'd chosen to wipe his slate clean, he'd spent decades in different places, having to give each one up when it became obvious he didn't age, didn't change. They'd have accused him of witchcraft, or of being a demon, or venerated him as a god, and Merlin didn't want that.

A long canoe through the Pacific. Only his magic had ensured he'd reached the island alive. He'd lived a life there, and when he left, he'd buried the whalebone fishhook his wife had given him the day they were joined. He hadn't loved her, but she'd taken care of him, and Merlin had been badly in need of taking care of.

He'd been a monk in India; lived in an ashram nothing like the one in Uttar Pradesh, and in the middle of his meditations he sometimes thought he saw his less evolved lives, but he could never hold on to the thoughts long enough to put them down.

In China, they called him the Dragon Lord, and small children followed him around as he made his way to the palace at the Emperor's behest.

A Diné medicine man saved his life once; a favour Merlin repaid with a spell of his own making, to repel invaders. It hadn't been enough to keep away Mr. Colt, but it had bought the man and his family some time.

In the Holy Land, he'd stood around and felt the power in the land, in the air. Even as Arthur ruled over Albion, peasants from Europe were flocking there. Merlin was just one of many pilgrims invading, usurping. It had shaken him deeply, the hurt and the joy combined, echoing from the land itself, so he'd left a coward, heading south and west.

He'd followed the Niger for several lifetimes, although of course they weren't really lifetimes at all. Inland, camped along an unusual cliff with dwellings cut into the side, a _Hogon_ taught him the foundation for what would become the _ādīlegian_ spell in exchange for a spell in Merlin's tongue. The spell Merlin then perfected in his stone house near Canterbury when he'd finally dared to return to Albion, by then called England.

It never seemed to stick, though. The first time the spell had faded and Merlin had regained the memories he'd hidden, he'd not got out of bed for a week. Then he cast it again.

It only ever took a decade or two for him to realise— _hold up, cognitive dissonance, something is off, not ageing_— and soon after, the memories would be triggered again. Once he'd remembered his magic, that was all it took for him to prepare the spell again. A few times he did it straight away, before he'd even remembered it all, by reflex.

One memorable time, during the Regency, he'd waited. He'd sat with the memories for months, to see if it was any easier with greater distance, but it wasn't. He ended up travelling post to Caerleon, where he'd lain on the soft grass that blanketed all that was left of Camelot, pouring out his guts into the cool night air and imagining somehow Arthur had heard him. As the sun rose, he said the words, and when he next woke, a carriage driver was standing over him, asking if he was well.

He'd said yes, he was quite well, and was transported with the post to his new life.

It had been difficult, those transitions. Not difficult mentally; he had no idea of the things he'd been through. He didn't know there was an Arthur to miss. But preparing for them was always difficult, especially as he got better at it. Laying ground work for a new identity; ensuring he had something identifying on his person; modifying the memories of those around him to assume he'd always been there. Leaving enough resources behind to support him. He had to do it before he cast the spell.

He'd got the hang of it eventually.

At night, though, he still dreamt of lives he lived before, and eventually, the memories would break through. Not even Merlin's magic was powerful enough to withstand Arthur and the ghosts he left behind.

"You could try living without him, you realise," Freya had said to Merlin. She'd given Morgana a break during that life, and instead she'd been the one to be his touchstone after he'd remembered.

"I can't," Merlin said, and thought he ought to be ashamed.

"You lived without me," she pointed out, with no bitterness.

Merlin touched her hair. "It was different."

Freya had smiled her sad, knowing smile. "Yes. Yes, I suppose it was."

* * *

He was stuck on the wheel, alright, had been before he ever knew the concept. Birth, life, death, rebirth; that was his life, even though his body never aged, and his understanding never evolved.

Over and over, he kept going over the world alone, and when those moments came when he understood just how alone he was, well, it was then that he cursed whatever gods were listening, cursed Arthur himself for tying Merlin to this land so effectively that no sword, potion, bayonet or jump could set him free.

He'd even once tried to use magic, dark magic, to defeat immortality, but it didn't work.

When he'd woken, Nimueh had been there, knitting like Madame Defarge watching the _Guillotine_, completely unmoved by Merlin's grief at waking.

"Your life was never yours, Merlin. You were made for Arthur. You don't get to die until he dies."

"He's been dead for over nine hundred years."

"And yet he breathes still. I watch him sometimes, in Avalon. He breathes as easily as the waves against the shore of the island."

Merlin had to bite his lip to stop the invective.

"It really isn't fair, is it, Merlin? That I get to see him whenever I like, but you? You must wait," she taunted him.

"I gave up believing in fairness a long time ago," he said finally. "I believe it was the time I offered my life and you tried to take my mother's instead."

"Well, we do hold a grudge, don't we? That doesn't answer my question."

"No, it isn't fair."

"Perhaps it is. After all, I did give him life. Twice. I made him."

"I made him better."

"Yes, I suppose you did. That's the only reason you're still around. He has more to do still, and they say he he will need you to do it."

Merlin had believed her, enough that he didn't cast the spell again for twenty long years. It was already becoming more difficult to remember, more difficult to perform each time, like his magic was slowly seeping away.

For twenty years, Merlin watched hemlines rise, the stock market crash, and London firebombed. When reports of atrocities on the Continent had come in, Merlin had tried to summon his magic to do something, anything, but it didn't come, and neither did Arthur.

So much for coming back in Britain's hour of need.

On V-E day, Merlin finally managed to cast the spell again, and when he next woke, he was a soldier suffering from shell shock. The returned soldier became a banker, and the banker had a wife. One day the banker read T.H. White's _Once and Future King_, and the banker's wife became a widow who visited an empty grave in Surrey and Merlin moved to New York and woke up a beatnik.

That hadn't lasted long, though. His constant irritation at the Kennedy White House being called Camelot had seen to it that it hadn't lasted long at all.

As the 20th century wore on, Merlin cycled through lifetime after lifetime, each of them not lasting more than a decade and a half. He'd been drafted to Vietnam; one of the few times he'd actually gone to war since Arthur fell, and it wasn't even for his own country. He didn't really have a country anyway.

He quickly found he was as competent at killing people as he ever was, and just the realisation alone was enough to wake him up.

He spent the next lifetime selling _caipirhinas_ on the beach in Brazil, until he'd fallen in love with a surfer called Arturo, strapping and blond, and that was enough to bring him staggering back to reality. Soon enough, Merlin was studying literature at university, getting pissed off cheap beer and sicking up on the shoes of a girl called Renuka. A girl who was so much like Gwen had been, in the early days, that something in Merlin was drawn to her from the moment they met.

He loved Renu, truly, even as she grew into someone quite different from Guinevere. Even still, he found now that there were times he wished for Gwen, wished for she and Lancelot to round a corner and greet him, to let him know that they were there, that they remembered him, that they _knew_ him.

* * *

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Renuka Duraswaimy ([rduraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
Subject: Hello?

What's with the radio silence, Merlin?

\--

To: Renuka Duraswaimy ([rduraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Hello?

Sorry. Been pretty busy with my article. And I sort of met someone.

 

* * *

 

"Tell me all about it," was the first thing Merlin heard when he answered Renu's phone call.

Merlin sighed. Fortunately, he'd already given some though to how he would tell this story minus the magic, destiny, immortality, and reincarnation. Misunderstanding at airport, conciliatory drinks, chance meeting in London, bloody expensive bottle of booze, and a memorable shag, and Renu was enthralled.

"It's like a movie," she sighed. "Or a book. You should write a book. How travelling around the world introduced you to the fit, broad-chested blond you've been dreaming of for most of your life."

"I don't think so." He was _not_ Elizabeth Gilbert, thank you.

"It worked for that _Eat, Pray, Love_ woman. Now Julia Roberts is playing her! Who do you think should play you in the film they make of this? Obviously, your Arthur should be Alexander Skaarsgard."

"No one is making this into a film. It's barely even Eastenders."

"So, when do we meet him?" Renu was unfazed, clearly.

Merlin chewed on his lip to buy some time. "Uh, I'll think about that one. Don't want to jinx it, you know."

"Aren't we superstitious now?"

"Yeah, well, all this magic and myth has got to me, what can I say?"

Arthur rang him that afternoon, while Merlin was transcribing his notes on _Umbanda_, a less magic-oriented African tradition in Brazil. Merlin was glad he had recorded it, because at the time, he'd been persuaded to join the drinking, dancing and smoking cigars while the _Pai-de-Santo_ and _ Mãe-de-Santo_ sang their worship to the _Orixas_ in the streets.

It had beat sitting off to the side and scribbling notes.

"Listen," Arthur said before Merlin was even able to say hello. "I don't really do subtextual analysis of post-shag notes, so you're just going to have to tell me to get lost if that's what you want."

Merlin couldn't help laughing. Arthur never had been one for subtlety. "No subtext, I promise."

Arthur paused. "That's good. What're you up to today?"

"Writing."

"This a bad time?"

"Not at all," Merlin lied. "What are you up to?"

"I'm on my way to the parents'. It's their anniversary 'do tonight. Thirty five years."

Merlin smiled at the warmth in Arthur's voice. "Well, my congratulations to them. When are you back?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. I have to ref a footie match."

"Yeah?"

"I ref for a kid's league. Excalibur sponsors them, so..."

"They any good?"

"Not especially, but they get a kick out of it."

Merlin groaned.

"Kick, get it?" Arthur said.

"That was awful, Arthur. I thought you were funnier than that."

"I was trying to impress you before."

"Not trying to impress me anymore?"

"You seemed impressed enough," Arthur said, lowering his voice suggestively.

Merlin couldn't deny it; he just huffed.

"Just as I suspected."

"You're horrible. I'm ringing off now," Merlin warned. "Enjoy your evening, Arthur."

"See you soon?"

"Count on it."

 

* * *

 

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Sean Moody ([seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com](mailto:seanisagodbitches@gmail.com))  
Subject: LOLOLOLOLOL  
Attachment: drinkplayf@#k.jpg

  
____spacer____

Sorry mate, someone beat you to it already.

Even still, you never mentioned you found _amour_ during your travels. Waiting until civil partnership ceremony to clue us in? I need time to get my rainbow tie drycleaned, man.

 

* * *

 

Merlin managed a few more paragraphs that night, in between distracted imaginings of Arthur at a party for his parents' anniversary. What were they like? Did they know how special Arthur was? From the TIME article, Merlin rather thought they did, and he was glad.

He gave up the pretence of working on his article, and instead, lost four hours reading about Meredith Pendragon's career as a renowned academician at LSE, and clicking through gossip column reports about his sister and her royal connections.

He also sent Arthur a friend request on Facebook. He didn't change his relationship status though. That would be creepy.

He didn't sleep well, not even after jerking off to the memory of Arthur under him the night before. When his alarm went off the next morning, he waved at it angrily, and it shut off on its own.

Merlin stared down at his hand. Magic again. It was in there somewhere. He tried to do it again, but he couldn't.

He texted Arthur on Monday, after spending too much time teasing out the differences between _Umbanda_ and _Qimbanda_, Afro-Brazilian spiritual traditions, for a single paragraph that would probably be cut anyway.

_how was your match?_

_don't ask. little kids r evil,_ Arthur texted back.

_feel like hanging out with some of my friends? none are little kids?_ Merlin nearly talked himself out of it, but he pressed send anyway.

_u have friends?_

_har. friends. mine. y/n?_

The response came back right away. _when?_

_what's your diary like?_

_dinner Thursday?_

_K. i'll check._

_do I get to see u b4 then?_

Merlin looked down at the simple question, trying not to snicker at Arthur's textspeak. To think he'd been worried about pushing too hard, too fast.

_just say when and where._ He texted back.

_my office rt now?_

Merlin stared down at the screen, trying to formulate a response, when two more messages from Arthur came through.

_just kidding._

_not really._

Merlin glanced over at his laptop, where his half-finished article was languishing open whilst Merlin did his washing, reorganised his DVD collection, paid his bills, and decided to bake a chocolate raspberry torte from scratch.

This would certainly beat the hell out of that. He jogged into his bedroom to fetch his rucksack, his lube, and some condoms, plus a change of clothes, and then rang for a mini-cab to take him to Canary Wharf.

He'd save the raspberry torte for later, when they actually had access to a shower after.

 

* * *

 

The last time Merlin had been here, he hadn't dared come inside. This time, he strode purposefully to the lifts and made his way to the 12th floor. Excalibur Biofuels's offices were sleek without being ostentatious; Merlin knew from their website that their offices were certified green, and their furniture was all made from reclaimed materials.

Not that he had spent too much time reading about it or anything.

The receptionist that greeted him was cool, but polite when she informed him Mr Pendragon wasn't seeing visitors today.

"Tell him it's Merlin Emrys from... ah, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation," Merlin replied, and was glad he was reasonably well-dressed today.

The receptionist's gaze had turned appraising, and she'd rung Arthur in his office to let him know. When she rang off, she pointed Merlin down a hallway.

"He said to go ahead. Third door on the left."

Merlin walked down the hall, pausing to admire the modern art on the walls that, according to the placard, had been made from recycled vinyl records.

Merlin walked into Arthur's office, and announced, "Really, Arthur. Vinyl deserves a more fitting resting place."

Arthur wasn't alone in his office; he was sat with a woman with curls framing her face and a lavender business suit. She looked so much like Gwen that for a moment, Merlin couldn't breathe. He wondered if Arthur also surrounded himself with people who reminded him of everyone they had once known, without knowing that was what he was doing.

"Ah, Mr Emrys," Arthur said. "Right on time. I was just telling Barbara about your email. Can't wait to explore how Excalibur and Gates might work together."

Email? What email? Merlin thought back to conversations he'd had with philanthropists, and hoped he'd fool this Barbara enough to convince her to leave him alone with Arthur so he could get to the real point of this visit. "Oh, right. Well, as I said, I think there is a real chance for collaboration here. We might be able to, ah, leverage the support of the Foundation to, erm, bring your proposal to scale."

"Anyway," Arthur said, standing. "Merlin Emrys, this is Barbara Jones. She's the sanity behind all this madness. Barbara, Merlin."

Barbara rose from her seat at the conference table they'd been working at. It was round.

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Jones," Merlin said, taking her hand. Her grip was firm and confident and Merlin had to wonder if maybe Morgana had got it wrong; that Gwen was back after all and that time had simply blurred her features so that she looked different to how Merlin remembered.

"Likewise."

"Barbara runs the business end of all this," Arthur explained. "Not that I couldn't do it myself, but I do better working with the scientists."

Barbara rolled her eyes. "What he means is, he can't do it himself and he's bloody lucky he's got me. Polymers and biochemical reactions and petrochemicals he can talk about 'til he's blue in the face, but value chains and accounting and audits give him hives."

"Audits give everyone hives," Arthur said with a laugh, "but we should probably not reveal that in front of the donors." He winked at Merlin, who had to suppress a laugh.

Barbara gathered up some papers into her leather portfolio and turned on a polished high heel.

"Well, I'll leave you to your brainstorm, then. Can we meet at, say, four, to go over the performance appraisals for the R&amp;D team?"

"Absolutely," Arthur said, ushering her out of the office. "See you then," he added, and closed the door.

"Alone at last," Merlin said.

"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Really? Way to get everyone's hopes up," Arthur said, but he was grinning madly and looking back and forth between Merlin's face and his rucksack.

"What've you got there?"

Merlin flipped the lock on Arthur's door before unzipping the bag.

"Let's see," he said. "Water bottle. Notebook. Biro. BlackBerry. iPod..."

Arthur sighed. "Pragmatic as always, I see."

"Very pragmatic," Merlin agreed. "I seem to have also brought along a few other things. For example..." he trailed off, setting a strip of foil-wrapped condoms and the lube on the table where Barbara and Arthur had just been working.

"Mmmm. Now that's more like it," Arthur said.

Merlin wasn't quite sure how Arthur managed to keep his entire office from running in while Merlin sucked his brain out through his cock, but it seemed to involve quite a lot of Arthur attempting to fit his entire fist in his mouth and biting down, hard.

It worked, though, because no one came running, not even when Arthur had snarled and pulled Merlin off his cock with a messy slurp.

"What's wrong?" Merlin asked, but instead of answering, Arthur kissed him, sliding his tongue against Merlin's forcefully.

"Christ," Arthur muttered into Merlin's ear when he pulled away. "What the fuck are you doing to me?"

"Well, I was sucking you off," Merlin retorted, but he wasn't able to summon any indignation. It was hard to be annoyed when Arthur Pendragon's tongue was licking in and out of his mouth. It was just one of his realities.

"I want to be inside you," Arthur said. "Can I?"

Merlin felt a stab of want low in his belly. "Fuck, yeah," he said.

He found himself bent over Arthur's desk, Arthur fucking him open on his cock, and Merlin couldn't stop himself from talking, couldn't stop the "Arthur, please" or the "I missed you, God, I missed you," from streaming out of his mouth in a litany punctuated with hisses each time Arthur's cock hit that spot inside him dead on, like he knew just how to find it.

"It's not even been a day," Arthur chided him, his voice hushed, but he sounded pleased with the idea Merlin might have missed him. "And anyway," he sputtered, his breath catching on each thrust. "You're the one who got up and left early in the morning."

"I was, oh, fuck," Merlin tried to say. "I needed to feed the cat, and you, ah—"

"I?" Arthur prompted, pushing in harder.

"You're gorgeous when you sleep," Merlin panted out. "Didn't want to disturb you."

"Mmm. Well, you owe me a lie-in now, for making me wake up alone."

"Left a note," Merlin said. On the next thrust, he lost his grip on the edge of the desk and went sliding across a bunch of papers— press releases or something, all with the Excalibur logo on— and Arthur laughed out loud.

"You're gonna need to hold on tighter than that, Merlin," Arthur breathed.

"Oh yeah?" Merlin challenged.

"Yeah," Arthur said, and starting pumping his hips faster, dragging a keening moan from Merlin's throat before he even knew what was happening.

Merlin scrabbled for purchase until he gained a better grip on the desk.

"There we go," Arthur said, leaning over and whispering into his ear. Merlin let his head fall back onto Arthur's shoulder, and he kept his deathgrip on the desk whilst Arthur fucked him hard and fast and merciless, until Merlin came with a muffled moan and Arthur followed, stuttering his rhythm with each pulse of Merlin's cock until Merlin lay pressed uncomfortably against the desk with Arthur heavy on his back and a press release stuck to Merlin's cheek.

Eventually, Arthur let Merlin up when they realised that the staff were sure to be insanely curious about the Gates Foundation meeting happening behind closed doors.

"Do you think they'd notice if I left wearing different clothes?"

"Mmm. Probably. Your shirt's all right though, just your trousers."

Merlin leaned back against the desk. "So, Thursday night? Dinner?"

"Yes, with your friends. Will Morgana be there?"

Merlin blanched. He'd meant Renu and Sean, but of course Arthur would include Morgana. No doubt he was feeling the pull toward her as well, much as Merlin had before he'd ever remembered.

"Morgana, eh?" Merlin said lightly, as he changed into the clothes he brought with him.

"Not like that." Arthur pulled a face. "She's just...interesting."

"You only met her for a few minutes."

"Still, you seem to have some history with her."

"You could tell that from three minutes of small talk?" Merlin said with a raised eyebrow.

Arthur ignored the question. "She looks like she could be your sister."

"I don't have any sisters."

Arthur looked surprised. "Huh. You know, I just realised...I don't know anything about your family."

Merlin bit his lip. "Only child, parents dead. Not much to know."

"There must be someone." Arthur looked up from fixing his tie with a frown.

Merlin smiled sadly; he was used to answering this question, although it was different now that he could actually remember having parents, a mentor, partners, lovers. And, of course, Arthur. "No, there's no one."

"But...what do you do for Christmas?" Arthur looked flummoxed.

"I go to friends'," Merlin said. "Really, Arthur, you don't need to feel bad for me. I do just fine."

Arthur just shook his head. "That's just not right. Well, next Christmas, you'll spend with us," he said, as if it were a done deal.

Merlin didn't ask who "us" was— the TIME article had gone into his childhood a bit; son of an LSE professor and a barrister, football captain growing up, younger sister who competed in dressage and had a brief fling with Prince Harry.

Merlin could almost imagine it; a tree, wrapped gifts, turkey and chipolatas and tissue paper crowns and was glad that Arthur, in this life at least, had known what it was like to be part of a complete family, not a fractured dynasty.

"All right," Merlin said, pulling on Arthur's tie to bring him closer. "I'd like that."

* * *

"You know," Merlin said to Morgana, when she'd waltzed into his flat unannounced the following day. "Some people respect locks, even when they can open them without a key."

"Oh, get stuffed," Morgana said, clicking her way into the kitchen. "Although from the way the earth was moving this week, I'd say you have that under control."

Merlin scowled.

"No, really," Morgana said. "You realigned three magical currents with that little exercise on Arthur's desk. They haven't worked right since...well, since."

"You're having me on. And how did you know about the desk?"

Morgana just grinned and held up a crystal. "Told you I had loads of 'em."

This woman was incredible. "You....actually _watched_?"

"Well, it gets boring there in that little shop, you know. I never learnt to knit, and Morgause and I got tired of playing Snap all the time."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh, Merlin," Morgana said, patting his cheek. "I wanted to talk to you, and had to check to see if you were busy. Don't worry. The moment your pasty arse came into view, I dropped the crystal and ran screaming."

Merlin smirked. "It was good enough for you once."

Morgana rolled her eyes. "And I've spent 400 years trying to forget that fact, thank you."

"Hmph. Well, it's a good thing you came; I needed to talk to you and I have no idea how to get hold of you at the best of times."

Morgana looked surprised. "You don't know about the shop?"

"What shop?"

"The tarot shop. That's where we are."

"A tarot shop? Back to seeing the future, are we?"

Morgana shrugged one slim shoulder. "It pays the bills, and anyway, it was the best place to align the vortices for the portal."

"What portal?"

"The one to Avalon, you dolt. Or do you think we just turn up like magic?"

"Don't you?"

"Avalon isn't exactly easy to get to, Merlin."

"I'd noticed."

Morgana picked up one of Merlin's spatulas and twirled it around like a sword. "Anyway, what was it you needed? Don't tell me, it's about Arthur. Or magic. Or magic and Arthur, which seem to be the only two things worth mentioning in your life."

Merlin glared. "Like you can talk."

Morgana smiled sweetly. "I take yoga classes and host a book club, too, you know."

"Whatever. Look, I'm having a dinner party, apparently," Merlin said. "Thursday. Arthur wants you to come."

Merlin expected Morgana to say something snarky, so the look on her face took him by surprise.

"He asked for me?" Morgana said. She looked like she might cry.

Merlin nodded. "Wanted me to invite you."

Morgana looked away, out the window, nodding to herself. "Just me?" she asked.

Merlin rather suspected that inviting Nimueh, Morgause, and Freya along would make the whole thing a bit of a disaster, but then Sean was bringing his new girlfriend, and Renu was bringing her latest conquest, so what the hell? "Bring them if you like," he said. "Since it's already going to be an exercise in absurdity."

"Excellent," Morgana said, recovering her equilibrium. "Freya can be my poison taster."

* * *

 

The dinner was not, in fact, an exercise in absurdity, although Merlin did contradict Morgana's stories on at least three occasions, making it sound like they had either known each other forever or only since India, and Merlin had to distract Arthur before the wheels started turning too fast.

He found that asking pointed questions about football and Excalibur usually did the trick, and then Arthur was quite pleased to have the rapt attention of the rest of the guests while he regaled them with tales of his life as the world's great hope for survival.

"How does it even work?" Sean asked him, and Arthur launched into an impressive speech about sciencey-sounding stuff that might have been alchemy for all Merlin was able to understand it.

Sean either was more science-minded, or just really impressed by Arthur, because he was enthralled. Since he had read PPE at university, and not any sciences, Merlin suspected the latter.

"And this got you on the cover of TIME magazine, man?" Sean kept asking. "That's ace, brilliant, seriously, mate." Sean's date yawned next to him and went back to checking her phone.

Merlin smirked at Arthur, whose lips quirked in answering amusement.

"Well, it's almost perfected," Arthur said. "Just one little reaction I can't make work out. But I'll conquer it sooner or later. I always do."

Renu, Sean and even Freya nodded in unison to Arthur's declaration, like he was the most captivating speaker ever, while Morgana rolled her eyes and Merlin sighed.

Some things really didn't change.

"So, that was nice," Arthur said as he helped Merlin clear the plates and do the washing up. They said goodbye to the others one by one; Merlin had almost had to rugby tackle Sean to get him to leave.

"Mmm," Merlin agreed, feeling Arthur's hand snake around his waist. "I think Sean has a mancrush on you."

"You reckon? Too bad for him, I'm already taken."

"Are you? Who is he, so I can beat him up?"

"He'd probably put up a good fight. You're pretty evenly matched."

Merlin just laughed.

"I'm gonna stay here tonight, if that's okay," Arthur whispered, nosing Merlin's earlobe while Merlin tried not to drop the plate he was drying.

"Why wouldn't it be okay?" Merlin asked.

"Dunno. You're just...sort of secretive." Arthur said, shifting from one foot to another, looking uncomfortable.

"Am I?" Merlin asked.

"Well, maybe not... secretive. Mysterious," Arthur said.

"Mysterious," Merlin repeated. "I like that."

Arthur leaned against the kitchen counter. "It's weird, though. I mean, we haven't known each other long and yet..."

Merlin swallowed. "And yet?"

"I feel like I've known you forever. It's... strange, huh?"

Merlin set down the last plate, and turned around to face Arthur. "I don't care if it's strange," he said. "I like it. I like you."

Arthur's smile was surprised and pleased, and when he reached out to pull Merlin toward him, Merlin went willingly. He would enjoy getting to know Arthur again, whether Arthur knew it was _again_ or not.

Sooner or later, Arthur would remember.

 

* * *

During the subsequent two weeks, Merlin and Arthur spent every evening together, having dinner and having sex, but mostly sex. Dinner was often an afterthought and largely consisted of Hobnobs, packaged meals from Marks &amp; Spencer, and, if they were at Arthur's, a really impressive selection of wine.

A few times, Merlin thought Arthur got a strange look in his eye, or a faraway expression, and he imagined for one long, held breath that this was it.

It never was, though.

On the plus side, Merlin progressed to making Gaius' mousie toys run across the floor by themselves. Of course, he neglected his writing in order to do it, and Gaius didn't seem that interested after a few half-hearted bats, so Merlin wasn't sure it was the best use of his time.

 

* * *

 

_Merlin. It's Tom here. It's Wednesday, about three your time. Just checking on your progress. Send me something soon, okay?_

Merlin stared down at his BlackBerry. He wanted to send Tom something soon, but his story was in bits and pieces, and he was progressing from frustration to full-fledged panic.

His kitchen table was a mini war-zone [.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/3087.html) Piles of research grew daily; photocopies with coloured highlighters, memory sticks, photos and books all stacked on top of each other. Sacred temples torn down but for a single wall, a fishhook, a snakelike god and the power in gaining absolute control over desire. A dragon, and a long lost king returned, and currents of energy deep below an ancient red rock.

A wish made, a ribbon still tied but falling whole to the ground. A wish come true, but only just; next time, Merlin would be more careful what he wished for.

Not that there would be a next time. He could just erase himself from Tom's mind, maybe, if he worried less about the article and more about regaining control of his magic. He'd played God with many peoples' minds over time, in pursuit of preserving his sanity.

Something about this subject, though, magic and the world, made him want to see it through to the end.

Also there, a copy of _The Flight of Sweeney_ by Seamus Heaney. It had been in the bag Arthur'd given Merlin when he returned from Ireland, but Merlin had been so distracted with Arthur that the bag had lain, forgotten, on his table for the better part of a week.

It was a translated epic poem about Suibhne, king of _Dál nAraidi_, who was magically cursed by Saint Ronan to live as half man, half bird, hiding in the woods like a wild man.

Merlin could relate. He'd been there, done that, got the long white beard. And the legendary persona. Of all the ones in history to choose, they'd gone with that one.

It wasn't even fair.

What did they all have in common, except that they were all, apparently, part of Merlin's life? A part of him?

Merlin didn't feel anything like the wise man legend said he was. He was not an authority on magic; he'd seen things he couldn't begin to understand during his travels then and now. Magic more powerful than he'd ever dreamed. What was the Old Religion next to that?

 

> _The Old Religion is the magic of the Earth itself. It will last long beyond the time of men._

 

Thanks, Merlin thought. That's very helpful, Kilgharrah. If you were still alive, I'd throw you a sheep in gratitude.

Merlin turned back to his work. He'd never missed a deadline, and he wasn't about to start. Even if he had to magic an article out of thin air.

* * *

To: Ndiaye, Amadou ([andiaye@ucad.sn](mailto:amadou.ndiaye78@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Hello!

Dear Amadou,

Just wanted to say hello and hope you're doing well. I'm going to send over some London stuff for the kids and some more copies of the photos I took. Can I send you anything?

-Merlin

\--

 

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Ndiaye, Amadou ([andiaye@ucad.sn](mailto:amadou.ndiaye78@gmail.com))  
Subject: Hello!

Salut, mon ami! Je vais ecrire en francais pour t'aider a pratiquer la langue, hahahaha

If it not too much trouble, I would be grateful for a cd for speaking Spanish. My paper was accepted to the anthrolopogists conference in Mexico City for next autumn.

 

* * *

 

Dating a world saviour hadn't changed much in a thousand years, Merlin thought. He still had to share Arthur with many other people. Even more this time around. Once, it had just been the councillors of state or the knights who demanded Arthur's time; now, there was media, scientists, politicians, and activists all vying for his attention.

It was plainly got to Arthur as well.

"Why don't they understand?" he groused to Merlin over the phone, when he rang to apologise that he'd be working late. "The stuff doesn't actually _work_ yet. I can't give them a proper demonstration. Not here, not next week in Boston, not in Long Beach for the TED conference."

"The TED conference?"

"Yeah. They're making me a fellow for 2011," Arthur replied.

Merlin nearly dropped the phone. "Wow. I guess I really _am_ dating a celebrity," he said. "Your talk will end up a viral sensation on You Tube or something."

Arthur groaned. "Come on, not you, too."

"Sorry. It's just—blimey. TED. That's for like, Bill Gates and Al Gore and Jamie Oliver and..."

"Yeah, and Arthur Pendragon, creator of rubbish biofuels."

"You'll get it to work, Arthur. Now, what's this about Boston?

"Oh, bugger. I was going to ask you first."

"Ask me what?"

"You ever been to Boston?"

"Nope, why?"

"Fancy a trip?"

Merlin laughed. "Unfortunately, unless I can get the magazine to cover it, I'm going to have to pass. Bit skint this month; this article's eating up too much time I should be spending writing other stuff."

"I didn't ask if you could afford it, Merlin. I asked if you fancied going to Boston with me."

Merlin narrowed his eyes. Arthur was still generous to a fault, at times. Merlin didn't like feeling beholden.

"Well?" Arthur asked.

"Arthur," Merlin started. "I'd love to, but—"

"No buts," Arthur said. "They pay for married couples; I just exercised my equal rights in asking for a companion ticket."

"But." Merlin blinked. Was Arthur comparing them to a... _married_ couple?

"You can work on the article from anywhere."

"Arthur."

"Are you really going to argue with me on this, Merlin? I should warn you. I have a response for any possible objection."

"Prepared them in advance, did you?" Merlin asked, softening. He heard a rustle of paper on the other end.

"I wrote them all down beforehand," Arthur said. "You're doomed."

Merlin looked up at the ceiling. "You're impossible."

"I am indeed. One of the many things you love about me," Arthur said, and if he realised what he said he made no sign of it. "Anyway, we'll leave on Thursday morning; get in in time to do a quick look around the city. I'm booked most of Friday, then we have all day Saturday and Sunday for whatever before we leave Sunday night."

"Quick trip," Merlin said.

"We're booked in business, but I've got Portia working on the upgrade for first." Arthur made it sound like a fait accompli.

Merlin tried to summon some aggravation, but he found he was quite unable. "This is something I am going to have to get used to, isn't it?"

"First class? You'd better believe it. One can support alternative fuels whilst still appreciating a little civility when he crosses an ocean," Arthur said with a sniff.

"I meant you, making grandiose gestures all the time."

"I wouldn't know how to make a small gesture if I tried," Arthur said with a huff. Merlin thought of a flower in a cave, a bandit-plagued village, and the countless times Arthur had ridden into battle believing he was about to die for Camelot, and loved him all the more for it.

* * *

Merlin really hadn't planned on taking another trans-Atlantic flight so soon. After this one, he wasn't sure he could even go back to way he used to travel.

No Heathrow Express, or heaven forbid, the Tube for Arthur Pendragon. No, they were driven to Terminal Five in a dark-windowed sedan. Merlin had been only slight disappointed that the driver wasn't wearing a cap and a uniform.

He hid a yawn behind his hand as they followed the porter who was pushing their luggage— a waste, really, he could have carried his and Arthur's on his own. He hadn't got much sleep the night before, he never did before a flight, no matter how many time he'd flown.

Sometime around two in the morning, Arthur had got fed up with Merlin's tossing and turning and clamped a strong arm around his shoulders and chest to pin him in place. That had led to Merlin wrestling, futilely, which had led to even more pleasant activities, which had in turn meant that both of them were red-eyed and exhausted as they stumbled up to the First Class check-in lane.

"Did you notice how very courteous and respectful I was to the agent, Merlin?" Arthur prodded.

"Would you like a biscuit for exhibiting basic human decency?" Merlin said.

"So says the White Knight who was _taking photos of my arse_ before asserting his moral superiority."

"I happen to like your arse," Merlin said, a little too loud for the still early morning quiet of Heathrow Airport. Arthur sent a nearby family an apologetic look, then pulled Merlin to the VIP security line.

"I hate to make your head any bigger," Merlin said, as they retrieved their hand luggage from the xray belt. "But you're right. This really is more civilised."

Arthur had only smirked and declared that he needed a coffee. Which they proceeded to get, not from Costa, but from BA's First Class Lounge, and it was brought to them by a bloke in a _dinner jacket_, along with a collection of pastry.

Arthur crashed as soon as the wheels were up. He hadn't even bothered to change into the pyjamas (pyjamas!) provided with their amenity kits. Merlin tried to work on his article during the flight, but he kept getting distracted. The in-flight entertainment included personal DVD players, and the hostess kept bringing him wine, even at this hour, and he lost an hour to reading the in-flight magazine and dreaming up ways he could query them for an assignment.

Arthur woke up as the in-flight map showed them approaching St. John's, and Merlin leaned over the divider to whisper in his ear. "Does it count as the mile high club if I only suck you off in the toilets?"

Arthur looked around at the half-empty first class cabin, passengers mostly snoozing or reading, and without a look back, made a beeline for the handicapped lavatory.

Merlin followed a few minutes later, scratching a rhythm on the door to let Arthur know it was him.

"Good job choosing this one," Merlin said as he started working Arthur's buckle apart. "More room in these."

"Less talking, more sucking," Arthur whispered, and rubbed his thumb over Merlin's lips.

"As you command, _sire_," Merlin said, kneeling, and when he looked up through his eyelashes he thought he saw Arthur's eyes narrow in speculation.

It wasn't remembrance, though. Merlin had got used to the disappointment in that by now.

 

* * *

 

It was in Boston that Merlin first began to really understand Arthur and what he was living with.

Being the great hope for a new generation was difficult enough with the metaphorical eyes of a kingdom on you. Having the literal eyes of the world on him, before he'd even attained some sustained success, had to be maddening.

"I never should have done the TIME interview," Arthur said as they sat on board the Boston Ducks. "I was just setting myself up for failure."

"Don't say that. You'll sort it out," Merlin said, rubbing his arm.

"Yeah, maybe. But if the brightest minds at Harvard, MIT, and Oxford can't help us, I'm not sure what chance there is. It's basically going to take magic to get it working right, and I don't know any magicians."

Merlin looked over, the view the skyline momentarily forgotten.

Arthur couldn't save the world without magic.

Of course.

 

* * *

 

Arthur had his own sort of magic, though, and Merlin got to see it in action in Boston. Not the way scientists and businessmen alike seemed to hang on his every word, and not the confidence he managed to project even when Merlin knew he felt nothing of the kind.

He genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. Even now, in this bigger, dirtier world, he thought he could.

Merlin had stayed behind during most of Arthur's meetings, although he did acquiesce to attending the cocktail reception as Arthur's guest.

There was one event he wouldn't have missed for the world, however: Arthur teaching a group of primary school students about climate change. One of the professors at MIT had asked Arthur if he would talk to his son's class.

Kids loved Arthur. That much was apparent from the moment he stepped into the room wearing a tee-shirt that said "I Recycled My Homework To Save The Environment" and started throwing ice cubes around the classroom.

"There's 23 ice cubes here," he started out. "One for each of the thousand square miles of polar ice we lose every day as they melt into the ocean, just like they are melting in your hands on and on the floor there."

Arthur gestured to Merlin. "This is my charming assistant, Merlin, who is going to make sure your principal doesn't sue me for water damage." He gestured for Merlin to clean up the ice.

"He always makes other people clean up his messes," Merlin stage whispered to the children. "He's a bully."

"Right." Arthur clapped his hands together. "In the real world, we don't have a Merlin who can just go around magically collecting up the ice, either. We need to stop it from melting in other ways. I'm here to tell you all about it."

Merlin watched as Arthur had the children playing with glasses of water and ice cubes, showing them how melting land ice and melting icebergs had different effects on the sea levels. Several of the girls in the followed him around from table to table, asking him questions and trying desperately to get his attention.

Cameron, the professor's son, stuck with Merlin in the back of the classroom.

"Is your name really Merlin?" he asked.

"Sure is," Merlin responded. "Have you heard of the name Merlin before?"

"Yeah," Cameron replied as he chucked his ice from hand to hand.

"From the King Arthur stories?" Merlin asked.

"Nope. Harry Potter."

"Merlin was in Harry Potter?"

"Yeah. You know, Merlin's beard! Merlin's most baggy Y-fronts! Merlin's saggy left... whatever he was going to say," Cameron finished with an evil smirk.

Merlin blushed. "I can't imagine what he was going to say, and neither should you. You're a toddler."

"I'm _ten_," Cameron reported proudly. "I know stuff."

"I'm sure you do, and I am sure your father and your teachers would appreciate my not talking about "stuff" with you. Where's your cup and your ice, mate? Let's save the planet, hey?" He looked up to see Arthur walking over to him.

"Merlin has an excellent suggestion over here," Arthur boomed. "Let's save the planet! How do you think we can do it?"

Merlin's fond grin went unnoticed as the room was filled with shouts of "recycle!" "Grow your own vegetables!" and "Ride your bike to the mall!"

 

* * *

 

If Arthur needed magic to save the world, then Merlin was really going to need to get a better handle on his magic again. Turning off alarm clocks and making toy mice run around the floor was one thing. Merlin had been able to do that sort of thing (well, after a fashion) since before he could talk.

He glanced over at the bedside clock. Arthur wouldn't be back from his meetings with MIT for at least two hours. He could keep sitting here, bouncing among really bad afternoon chat shows, or he could do something productive. He grabbed a pillow from the bed, and slid out onto the balcony with its view of the Boston Common. He needed to be closer to the elements.

He sat down cross legged, and began to empty his mind, as he had learned in the ashram. He There were no visions, no memories this time, only pure energy rippling under his skin as he tried to call his magic to him.

He started small, trying to make a small sculpture of a pineapple turn into the real thing. He brought forth the words, words he hadn't said in centuries. It wasn't as difficult as making a dog out of stone, but it still took every ounce of concentration he had. He kept going until he was exhausted, and Arthur was due back any minute, but when he scooped up the pillow he'd been sitting on, he came face to face with a bright, ripe pineapple.

He smiled.

"You're in a good mood," Arthur remarked later over dinner.

"Yeah. Made some good progress today," Merlin said, happily breaking lobster claws and drowning the meat in melted butter.

"I'm glad," Arthur said, but he sounded distracted.

"How about you? Any revelations or breakthroughs?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, nothing like that."

"It'll happen," Merlin said, and covered Arthur's hand with his non-butter soaked one. "It will. I promise, Arthur."

Arthur had tried to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.

 

* * *

 

The next day, they walked the Freedom Trail, through the North End and made jokes about the British Empire being better off without the colonies anyway. The woman in Paul Revere's house hadn't been amused.

Their lunch consisted entirely of cannolis from Mike's Pastry, and dinner was plate after plate of homemade Italian food from a little restaurant tucked away down a narrow alley. They'd split spaghetti and meatballs, and when Gina, their waitress, had taken a Polaroid photo of them slurping the same noodle for their "Lady and the Tramp" wall, Arthur had broken into his first full grin since he'd got back from MIT.

The next day, they took a tour up to Salem. It had been Arthur's suggestion that they do something for Merlin as well, and Merlin had been so touched by it that he didn't mention he'd been to Salem before, that he'd saved Morgana from execution there, many years ago.

It wasn't something he could figure out how to work into conversation.

Just being back in the town was strange. So much had changed, in hundreds of years, but every so often they'd stumble upon something that was so powerfully memorable it was like he'd been transported back over time and distance.

He supposed that had been what was happening to him all along. It was easier to handle, now, holding Arthur's hand and knowing that the missing parts of him were being filled in.

The Salem Witch Museum had freaked him out, the way it recounted this history of witchcraft persecution. He'd watched it happen around him. But he had managed to avoid it himself all those long years, in all those places he'd gone where magic was punishable by death.

"It's so irrational," Arthur pointed out.

"What's that?" Merlin asked, looking at the display of the Celtic Midwife, the benevolent witch figure who, in time, was demonised into a vicious hag.

"Did no one ever question it? Like, if someone _were_ a witch, could perform unnatural acts, why did they just let some religious nutter kill them? Why didn't they get away? Why didn't they not get caught in the first place?"

Merlin remembered Arthur, standing in front of his father and asking the same questions one late spring morning, when a young girl was facing the pyre for trying to make love potions. She hadn't had an ounce of magic.

"Well, they probably weren't very good witches," Merlin said. "Maybe the really good ones knew how to go unnoticed."

Arthur laughed out loud. "Or there weren't any to begin with, which is the simplest explanation."

"And the simplest explanation is always the right one, is it?"

"Occam's Razor, Merlin? I'm impressed."

They wandered around Salem for most of the morning, stopping in little shops and eating ice cream on the grass. They'd skipped the witch trial re-enactments on Merlin's suggestion; he called them boring but in truth, he just didn't want to be reminded of them.

Over seafood at the Hawthorne Hotel, Merlin rambled on about all the things he might include in his article, and Arthur had finally reached right over and put a finger over Merlin's lips. Merlin sucked the finger into his mouth for a moment, enjoying the way Arthur's eyes widened, until he remembered they were in public.

He looked around, but no one seemed bothered. Their waiter was smirking at them, though, so Merlin mumbled an apology.

"You can get married here, you know," the waiter said, like he was sharing an inside joke.

Arthur looked at Merlin and burst into un-Arthur-like giggles, whilst Merlin just raised his eyebrows. "We can get married back home, too," Merlin replied. It wasn't strictly true, but maybe it would get the waiter to move on.

"Really? That's awesome."

"Yeah."

"So, is there something you want to ask me, Merlin?" Arthur said, once the waiter had left them alone.

"Yes." Merlin paused dramatically. "Arthur, do you want another piece of bread?" Merlin held out the bread basket.

"I do."

Merlin blushed. That option had never been open to them before. He found himself wondering. Did Arthur want that? Did he want children? He was so good with them, and he'd wanted them with Gwen so badly, and not just for the succession. If this new life was about correcting past wrongs, maybe Arthur should get the chance to be a dad.

Merlin had very few feelings about children, one way or another, and besides, he didn't even know what Arthur thought of this relationship. Merlin knew it was forever, but then, he had the benefit of knowing it was already written. Arthur might just be enjoying the ride, not looking for anything serious.

"Merlin, I was wondering..."

"Yes?" Merlin felt very nervous all of a sudden.

"Why haven't you changed your Facebook status yet?"

Or maybe he was.

"I don't know," Merlin hedged. "Facebook statuses are quite a commitment," he said with a straight face.

"I understand," Arthur said, patting his hand. "It's scary. Will it help if I do it at the same time?"

"You know, I think it might." Merlin tried not to burst out laughing. He could feel magic crackling in him, and his heart beating against his ribs, and the memories of a thousand years swirling around in his head, and he welcomed them.

 

* * *

On the flight home, they'd entered the mile-high club again, just in case blow jobs didn't count. When they'd returned to their seats, they'd used the in-flight wifi to log into Facebook.

* * *

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v169/melacita/?action=view&current=fb2.png).

 

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v169/melacita/?action=view&current=fb3.png)

* * *

To: Emrys, Merlin ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
From: Thomas Malleore ([tmalleore@nationalgeographic.com](mailto:tom.malleore@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Outline

Received your draft. What were you doing in Boston?

Looks good, only...please tell me you're not writing about the monoculture or monomyth? Campbell's out of vogue.

\--

To: Thomas Malleore ([tmalleore@nationalgeographic.com](mailto:tom.malleore@gmail.com))  
From: Emrys, Merlin ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Outline

I'm not writing about a monomyth.

 

* * *

Merlin stumbled into his flat, with a promise to ring Arthur after he'd caught up on sleep and unpacked his stuff.

He made the mistake of trying to unpack with magic. It took a few hours for it to start working, but once it did, Merlin found he had a little problem.

He couldn't get it to stop.

He looked at his university papers now unpacking themselves from his old storage boxes, and rang Arthur. He got his voicemail.

"Arthur, hi. Hope you're getting some rest and not already at the office. I'm, uh, a little caught up in something here, so I need to pass on dinner. I'll ring you tomorrow? Bye."

He managed to get things to calm down long enough to let him bring Arthur croissants before he left for work the next morning.

"Stay," Arthur urged him, in between pressing kisses to Merlin's neck. "I'll pull a sickie." He wasn't even dressed yet, towel slung low around his hips, and Merlin wanted nothing more than to unwind the towel and fall to his knees.

He was about to do just that when he realised Arthur's tea was floating several inches above the coffee table.

Shit.

"I can't," Merlin said, hoping he sounded as regretful as he felt. "Deadline."

Arthur grimaced. "Fine."

"Besides, the world needs you, remember?" Merlin said, punching Arthur lightly on the shoulder. "Biofuel of the future."

"Biofuel of the never, at this rate," Arthur grumbled.

"Maybe it will just start working," Merlin suggested. "Like magic."

"Something tells me you weren't much of a science student after all."

"Guilty as charged."

"Anyway, if you won't indulge me, I should get ready for work. See you later?"

Merlin nodded, but he saw the uncertainty flash across Arthur's face for a moment and Merlin wanted to tell him everything, about Camelot, about magic, about how Arthur was more important to Merlin than anything he'd found in a thousand years, but he couldn't. To tell him would to be to risk all of this, and Merlin thought that even half of Arthur was better than no Arthur at all.

"Have a good day at work," Merlin called after Arthur as he padded back to his bedroom to get dressed. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, and after a long, unbearable moment, the tea settled back down on the table.

He let himself out.

 

* * *

 

Once he was back in his flat, Merlin started planning. He couldn't just say a few words over a vat in Excalibur's laboratories. Arthur was bound to be suspicious, if his invention just miraculously started working.

Then again, he _had_ tended to overlook such things before.

But how would Merlin explain it if Arthur did get suspicious? Why, yes, Arthur, I am an immortal, supernatural creature who fixed your biofuel, and by the way, did you know I used to use magic to tie you to your throne and suck you off, back when you were a legendary king?

Besides, Arthur would need patents. Tests. Experiments. Someone would figure out that it shouldn't work, and then ask questions.

"At least back in Camelot, people knew magic _existed_," Merlin whinged to Gaius, who was curled up next to him on the sofa. "No one believes in it anymore, and they'll call Arthur a snake oil salesman or something horrible."

Gaius just thumped his tail against Merlin's leg.

"Unless...I could use magic to make the scientific answer easier to find?"

Gaius didn't answer.

"You're not as helpful as your namesake, you know that, right?" Merlin slumped down on the couch and let his head fall back. He sat there, mentally berating himself for far too long, until he felt a paw touch his cheek. When he opened his eyes, Gaius headbutted him.

"Thanks, man," Merlin said. "I love you, too."

* * *

Over the next week, the excitement of the trip to Boston and even the re-found bliss of regular sex with Arthur were starting to wear off, leaving a new sort of writerly torpor that Merlin could scarcely afford. He spent the better part of one morning just glaring at his laptop while Gaius used his chair for a scratching post and then whinged loudly for his lunch.

The cursor only blinked back at him sullenly.

Merlin supposed cursors didn't have emotions and therefore could not be sullen. Whatever, it was lazy to use adverbs anyway, but fuck it if that bloody cursor on that blank page wasn't actively _mocking_ him.

At least he hadn't set the laptop on fire. He was making good progress with the magic, at least, if not the article about magic.

Beyond the draft he'd sent Tom, he had pieces of potential article strewn across a dozen different files. None of them felt quite right, so he opened a new one each day in the hopes that brilliance would pour from his fingertips into pixels so profound that he's have an award to put on his mantle. Or his cooker. Or perhaps Arthur's mantle, as Arthur did actually have a mantle, above a beautiful fireplace.

Not that Merlin had seen much of it lately. He'd had to fake a cold in order to avoid Arthur whilst the magic went haywire, and he missed him. Arthur'd brought soup by two days before, and had fussed over Merlin a little before Merlin feigned exhaustion and hinted for Arthur to leave.

"I don't want to get you sick," Merlin had said.

"What happened to 'in sickness and in health'?"

Merlin had just rolled his eyes and pushed Arthur out of the door. He hadn't missed the hurt expression though. It hurt Merlin, too. He wanted nothing more than to sit with Arthur next to his fire.

It would be like the old days, when the castle was too draughty or they were out on a hunt, and they would curl together before the fire, pretending it was for body heat until they stopped pretending all together.

Thoughts of curling up with Arthur in front of a fire were not going to help him get this story done, however. Merlin went back to work.

After a few hours of solid writing, he needed a pee break. He made a cup of tea while he was up, then started digging through his bag to find the stuff he'd printed out in Paris. When he reached into the bag, his fingers hit metal.

He drew out the keyfob of the Chinese dragon, and looked at it with a fond smile. He'd noted when he got it that it looked nothing like his dragon, and now he knew what he meant by that. The reds, golds, blues, and browns of this dragon looked nothing like Kilgharrah. The face was wrong, the body too long and snake-like, but still, he was a Dragonlord even now. And now he had a dragon.

He tossed the keyfob in the air and suspended it. It felt...right. Like his magic was finally cooperating. Maybe it would bring him good luck.

He'd managed another page before his mobile rang. The screen lit up: Arthur-mobile.

"Hey," Merlin said.

"Hi," said Arthur. "Alright?"

Merlin smiled a little. Arthur was so attuned to his moods in this incarnation; even if he didn't remember how he got that way, he seemed to carry a sort of muscle memory about Merlin.

"Yeah. I'm feeling a lot better."

"Look, I've got tickets to _Blithe Spirit_ tonight, Apollo, last minute. Shall we go?"

Merlin grimaced. "Ah, I dunno. I'm so close to finishing the article, and you know I haven't been feeling well..."

"Merlin," Arthur said. "What's wrong with you these days?"

"What do you mean?"

"You felt fine this morning, and you've said since Boston that your story is nearly finished."

"Well, you know writers. We're temperamental," Merlin said, lightly.

Arthur didn't respond.

"I mean, oh hell, Arthur, of course I want to go. I just...my career rests on this and right now it's shite and I'm just freaking out a little."

"Can I help?"

"You do help."

"Right."

"You do. What's wrong?"

"I just wonder sometimes, Merlin. If you're, well, hiding something from me."

Merlin stomach lurched. "I'm not, Arthur. I'm an open book; you know that."

They both sat for a moment, silent. "So, what time is the show?" Merlin asked with feigned enthusiasm.

"It's alright. I'll ask Barbara if she wants them. She can take Imogen."

"Arthur, no, I'll come--"

"It's okay. I know the story's bothering you. I'll ring you tomorrow night, alright? We can do curry and a DVD."

"That sounds wonderful. I can't wait."

"Sorry, have to run now. See you."

"Bye, Arthur."

He disconnected his call, and then looked down at the dragon keyfob.

"I could use some help, you know. Greatest sorcerer to ever live, and I can't even figure out how to make Arthur remember me, let alone help him save the world."

The dragon didn't answer. Merlin didn't expect it to.

 

* * *

 

> _"I need your help," Merlin shouted into the vast cavern. _
> 
> "You don't need my help, Merlin," Kilgharrah said, swopping down and landing on his perch. "You have everything you need."
> 
> "What does that mean?"
> 
> "Your magic was created the day Uther banished magic from his land. The power of every witch and warlock who died is yours now, yours to ensure the young Pendragon makes up for the wrongs of more selfish generations."
> 
> "If this is the power of every witch and warlock, it's no wonder they all got slaughtered," Merlin grumbled.
> 
> Kilgharrah smiled, and it was as unpleasant a look as it ever was, before he began to transform before Merlin's eyes into the Chinese dragon from Merlin's keyfob.
> 
> "You also must help redress old injuries, Dragonlord. Your story has allowed too many others to be stifled and ignored. They have helped you. Now you must step aside and let them speak."
> 
> The dragon's voice changed into a shrill sort of beeping, and

 

Merlin shut off his alarm with an angry wave.

 

* * *

 

Merlin showed up at Arthur's flat the next evening with beer and "Exxxtasy Erotic Game For Men," for which he had braved Blue Rose in the middle of the workday.

"Hi, I have a delivery for Mr Arthur Pendragon?"

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. If you could sign right here for me, mate?" Merlin held out a pen and Arthur's TIME magazine.

"Cheeky."

"Mmm."

"Right, well, I suppose I had better open it to make sure everything is in order. Do come in."

Merlin walked in to Arthur's flat and leaned against the door in the entryway while Arthur dug through the bag. His eyebrows raised when he saw the board game.

"I think whomever sent it feels guilty for neglecting you, and wants to make it up to you," Merlin offered.

"You're very perceptive, Mr...?"

"Merlin."

"Mr Merlin?"

"Just Merlin."

"Well, aren't you lucky? Just Merlin is exactly what I want." Arthur pulled Merlin close to him and kissed him.

When they broke apart, breathless, Arthur led Merlin into the lounge. There was takeaway, plates, and cutlery already out. The curry smelled amazing, and Merlin's rumbling stomach reminded him that maybe sex could wait. For a few minutes.

"By the way," Arthur said, opening up two beers and stashing the rest in the refrigerator. "Is that thing yours?"

"What thing?" Merlin said. He was already dishing out tikka masala, naan and samosas onto plates for them.

"That thing there, on the table. The keyfob."

Merlin looked over at the table. A dragon keyfob was sat on top of a DVD. A keyfob that looked very much like his own.

"I found it on top of that DVD earlier. Thought maybe you had left it here."

"Me? Why me?"

"You're the only person I know who'd want to watch that film," Arthur said, coming in from the kitchen. "I thought maybe you were having a go. You know, Arthur and Merlin and Arthur and Merlin."

Merlin looked at the DVD more closely.

_Excalibur_.

"I...," he started, as Arthur sat down next to him. "Yeah, the dragon's mine. I don't remember leaving it here, though. Weird." Doubly weird since he did distinctly remember having it in his possession yesterday. In his own flat.

When he'd asked it for _advice_.

"So," said Arthur. "Shall I start the film?"

Merlin nodded, unable to speak. He shoved a forkful of curry into his mouth, to make up for the fact that he literally had no idea what to say.

The film was unbearable. Merlin had hated it the first time he'd seen it. It had always felt wrong to him somehow. Even when he was just a geeky kid with an affinity for Arthurian legend, he'd hated this one.

He had to shush Arthur throughout the whole thing, as he cracked snarky jokes about everything.

"If I had Lancelot in my bed, I wouldn't bother with that Guinevere."

That's not quite what you said back then, Merlin thought, ignoring the sense of loss he felt whenever he thought of Lancelot and Gwen. It wasn't fair, that they couldn't be here. Or maybe it wasn't fair that they got to get off the wheel early, as easily as they left Camelot that night, and not have to go through this at all.

"I wonder if Arthur ever did threesomes."

Merlin felt his face heat up at that one. He remembered a time, not long after his wedding, before Lancelot had come back, when Arthur had returned from a campaign looking battered and discouraged. He and Gwen had sent Ulric away and tended Arthur themselves. There'd been wine, and happy tears, and the remnants of terror, and Gwen had looked so pretty in the firelight and Arthur so alive and _kingly_ and...

"This guy's a rubbish king, you know that?"

Merlin tucked his tongue against his cheek. He was totally saving that one for later.

"Wow, this Merlin is rubbish, too. I like you better."

That one too.

Merlin was ready to tear out his hair by the time Percival was bringing Arthur the holy grail.

"Drink from the chalice. You will be reborn and the land with you," Percival said onscreen[.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/1291.html)

Arthur drank from the grail, and both he and the tortured lands of Camelot were renewed.

 

> _If Arthur drinks water from the cup, he will live. _

Merlin shook his head to rid himself of Nimueh's voice. What an odd memory to have, only...

"Oh, _hell_ no," Merlin said, sitting straight up from where he had been leaning against Arthur.

"What?" Arthur looked over from where he was slumped against the side of settee.

"Nothing. Just, I mean, how unbelievable. Water returning Arthur to himself? How absurd."

"Well, it is the Holy Grail, Merlin. It's not like a mug from an Oxfam shop."

"You don't even know what an Oxfam shop is."

"I believe in repurposing consumer goods. Climate change, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah." Merlin played along, but his mind was racing.

"What's going on with you?" Arthur asked, looking concerned.

Merlin shook himself back to reality. "Nothing," he said. "I'm fine."

"You've been acting strange for days now."

"It's nothing, I swear. Now, what did you do with that game?" Merlin leered at Arthur, and reached over to turn off the DVD with a click of the remote. Arthur didn't protest.

 

* * *

 

There were 117 tarot and mysticism shops in London, but only one was called Avalon.

Really, Merlin thought. It was all a bit obvious. He stepped in through the weathered door, and was immediately assaulted by the smell of incense.

Nimueh was sat behind the counter, knitting needles flying through bright crimson wool.

"I need to find the Holy Grail."

"Hello to you, too, Merlin." Nimueh didn't even look up from her knitting.

"No, really. I need to find the Holy Grail."

"Have you checked under the Louvre?" Nimueh asked.

"Don't fuck with me, priestess."

Nimueh set aside her knitting. "You're always so serious, Merlin. You used to have a better sense of humour."

"I used to be a country boy servant to an idiot, too. Times have changed. Now, I'm a pissed off, reawakened warlock about to make you wish you had stayed smashed to bits on the ground of the Isle of the Blessed."

Nimueh considered him. "Well, you've just answered your own question, haven't you?"

"What?'

"Where did you last see the Cup of Life? I take it that's what you mean, since we all know there was no Holy Grail."

"Um..."

"Goodness, you really have addled your brain with all your spellcasting. What you need is the Cup of Life, and I assume it's still on the Isle. Where else could it be?"

"It's can't still be there. It's been a thousand years."

"The Isle was well masked. It's still there."

"But— how will I see it?"

"Your magic will guide you. You do have magic again, don't you?"

"Yes," Merlin said. "At least a little. I haven't tried anything major though. Not like the _ādīlegian_ spell."

Nimueh's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "The _ādīlegian_ spell? Surely that foolishness is over now that your precious Arthur is back."

Merlin looked down for a moment, not meeting her eyes, and Nimueh's expression became shrewd. "Ah. Not happy to only have part of him, are you? Well, you never were."

"What is this, a retrospective slide show for my retirement party? You don't hear me going back through _your_ greatest hits. You know, the ones where you murdered a bunch of servants to get at Uther. Or where you tried to have Arthur killed, even though you were the one who gave him life in the first place. Or..."

"Really, Merlin. Must we hash all this out again? It makes me tired."

"How can it make you tired? You're not even alive to be able to sleep."

"Precisely. Do you know how awful it is to be tired and not able to sleep?"

Freya stepped out from behind the curtain. "Your turn. I'm getting sick of guarding that bloody lake." She stopped when she saw Merlin. "Oh, hello, Merlin. Not that I don't love lakes. In general, it's quite nice, being Lady of the Lake. Thanks to you. Just, you know, sometimes I think maybe Nimueh should have a chance to be Lady of Lake, too," she finished, in a rush.

Merlin rolled his eyes. "You lot just sit around all day and dream up new ways to torment me, don't you?" He looked around. "Where's Morgause? I never seem to run into her like I do all of you."

"_Morgause_ puts a lot of effort into ensuring she sees you as little as possible," came a new voice. Merlin whirled around to find Morgause leaning against a display case. "But if you've got fifty quid, I can tell you the gruesome way you will meet your end."

"Still bitter, are we?" Merlin said.

"Always," Morgause replied. Freya just rolled her eyes and asked Morgause to help her untangle a bunch of crystals on chains.

"Why bother? They're all rubbish, anyway. Most of what passes for magic is a joke. The only ones who know anything anymore are here in this room."

"That's not true," Merlin said. "There's loads of magic in the world. I've seen it." And he had done. Perhaps not on his most recent trips, but in a thousand years, he'd seen enough to know it was still there. Just not shared easily with tourists and freelance writers.

Morgause scowled. "Exaggerations and superstitions," she said.

"Some of it, perhaps but then most superstitions begin somewhere," Merlin said. "Look at how our history has been misrepresented through time. Doesn't mean _we're_ not real."

Freya sighed. "I would like to see more of the magic of other lands," she said, wistful.

"Maybe Merlin can host story time," Nimueh said. Merlin and Freya exchanged a grin.

"You've always preferred to think the world revolved around us," Merlin said.

"It does," Morgause said. "But if you're hoping to change that, you'd better get started," Morgause said.

Merlin looked back over. "What are you talking about?"

Morgause reached over and pulled on Merlin's hair.

"Ow!" he shouted. "Watch it."

"Man up, Emrys. Here." Morgause set something on Merlin's palm. "Your first grey hair. Guess you're finally getting older."

Merlin looked down at his hands. He didn't feel any different, but...

"Last chance, Emrys. Better make it count."

Merlin scowled and let himself out of the shop.

 

* * *

 

To: Renuka Duraswaimy ([rduraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))Sean Moody ([seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com](mailto:seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com))  
From: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))  
Subject: Sorry

Sorry I've been so out of pocket since I went to Boston. I was ill, and this article is kicking my arse. It's almost done though and when it is, drinks are on me.

\--

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))), Sean Moody ([seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com](mailto:seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com))  
From: Renuka Duraswaimy ([rduraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Sorry

We just figured you were too busy getting laid.

\--

To: "Merlin W. Emrys" ([merlin.emrys@gmail.com](mailto:merlin.is.emrys@gmail.com))Renuka Duraswaimy ([rduraswaimy@gmail.com](mailto:renu.duraswaimy@gmail.com))  
From: Sean Moody ([seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com](mailto:seanisagodbiatches@gmail.com))  
Subject: Re: Sorry

Renu might have been but I try not to think about you getting laid. No offense, Merlin. Anyway, come back soon. Loads to tell you about.

* * *

 

For all his urgency, Merlin didn't set out for the Isle of the Blessed right away. He started to, once, had even been halfway to the car hire place in his neighbourhood, when Arthur had rung to complain about a spot he'd just filmed for _Panorama_.

"He had no _clue_ what I was talking about," Arthur said. "It's not rocket science."

"It may as well be to some, Arthur," Merlin said. "I barely understand it myself, and I hear about it all the time."

Not to mention he'd been spending on a lot of time casting spells over physics and chemistry texts these days. At this rate, he was going to have to discover a new element for the periodic table to get Arthur's formulas fixed. "Anyway, I'm sure you didn't sound stupid."

Arthur huffed. "I wasn't worried about sounding _stupid_, Merlin."

"No, of course not." Merlin smiled to himself. "So, what are you doing now?"

"Right now? I'm about five minutes from your flat, actually."

"Oh," Merlin said. "I'm out."

"Oh." Arthur sounded disappointed; knowing Arthur, the interview had rattled him and he wanted someone to listen to him while he went on about all the ways he was in the right. He'd always been that way. It was just how he processed things.

Merlin looked at his watch. The Isle wasn't going anywhere; it could wait a bit longer, even if Merlin couldn't. "I'm not far, though. I'll be there in a bit."

When he'd arrived back to his flat, Arthur was sitting on the stairs, tapping away on his phone with a frown of concentration. When he saw Merlin walk in the front entry, the frown melted away.

"Hey," Merlin said, offering Arthur a hand. To Merlin's amazement, Arthur let Merlin pull him up.

"Hi." Arthur said, smiling, but his eyes looked tired as they went into the flat.

Gaius strutted over at the sound of Arthur's voice, and when Arthur sat down at Merlin's disaster of a kitchen table, Gaius jumped onto his lap and started kneading.

Merlin raised an eyebrow. Even his cat liked Arthur more than anyone.

"I don't have much food," Merlin started, searching through the fridge, "but I have some spag bol here somewhere." When Arthur didn't reply, Merlin turned around to find Arthur staring at some of the papers on Merlin's table. Chemistry papers.

"What's this?"

Merlin ran over and snatched up the papers. "Nothing," Merlin lied. "Just...trying to be better informed about what you do for a living, like a good boyfriend."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Really?" He didn't sound convinced.

"Yes, really," Merlin tried for his most winning smile. "I'm getting better. Look. I know that C stands for Carbon!"

Arthur rolled his eyes and scratched Gaius under his chin. Merlin could hear the answering purr. "You really are something, you know that?"

Merlin did his best to look completely guileless.

"This stuff all for your article, still? I swear, this table gets worse every time I'm 'round."

"'Fraid so. Tom liked what I sent him so far, though. I should be done soonish. If I can find someone willing to talk to me about Persian sufism."

"Thank God. I'm looking forward to finding out what you're like when you don't have so much work to do."

Merlin snickered as he went back to heating up the sauce for the spaghetti. "It'll be something else soon enough. Hopefully not as intense as this one was, though." As if anything could be.

"Good. We can go climbing again."

Merlin groaned.

"And watch more videos and neck on my settee. Just no more King Arthur, okay?"

"Huh?" Merlin nearly dropped the saucepan he was holding.

"The last one gave me really fucked up dreams," Arthur told him.

"What sort of dreams?" Merlin asked, biting his lip.

Athur set Gaius back down on the floor so he could clear off some of the table for their dinner. He didn't look at Merlin. "Just... weird ones. Like I was in the film, and you were, and Barbara was Renu only not and it was just... weird." Arthur shook his head. "I had a weird one after Boston, too, about witch trials. I just have an imaginative subconscious, I guess."

Merlin nodded, wordlessly setting down their plates. "Do you have troubling dreams often?"

Arthur shrugged. "They weren't troubling, Dr Freud," he insisted. "Just... weird. And I don't get them that often. Once, in Mali. I told you I'd been there too, right? I fell asleep on the roof of our guesthouse that night; it was too hot to stay inside." He looked over at Merlin. "When I woke up, Matthew said I was shouting at someone to not give up, that I was coming for them. I just figured it was the antimalarials."

Merlin felt goosebumps up and down his arms. Mali had been where he'd discovered the basis for the _ādīlegian_ spell.

"Anyway," Arthur continued. "It wasn't a big deal, just the one dream. People have strange dreams all the time."

 

* * *

 

It wasn't just one dream. Arthur fell asleep in Merlin's arms, all but passing out after a record-fast handjob, and in the middle of the night, he'd started mumbling the name "Mordred."

Merlin's blood went cold.

 

* * *

 

"I think he's starting to remember," Merlin told Morgana, when he stopped by the tarot shop again.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure."

Morgana nearly dropped the phials she held. "Merlin. Are you mad?"

"It gave him nightmares."

"What?"

"Being responsible for Camelot. He was brave, and he led his knights and his people better as anyone before or since. But it wasn't easy, and it haunted him in his dreams." How could Merlin have ever forgotten that, all those nights he'd looked after Arthur when exhaustion finally pulled him away from his maps and his treaties?

Morgana didn't response, just began dusting the crystals on the curio shelves.

"It's not fair, asking him to go through it again," Merlin said.

Morgana whirled around. "That's not for you to decide."

"It could be," Merlin said. "The _ādīlegian_ spell. He could still save the world. Excalibur will work. I'm going to make it work. Maybe...maybe he doesn't need to know who he is. Maybe it's enough that I do."

"Are you _insane_? Listen to you! You don't get to make these decisions, Merlin."

"Why not? He's returned at an hour of need. He's held up his part of the bargain. I can make it easier for him along the way."

Morgana nodded her head, thoughtful, although her eyes still told Merlin what she thought of his idea. "You're scared."

"I'm _what_?"

"You. You're _scared_."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. You don't want Arthur to know you've been lying to him all this time."

"I—"

"You should have more faith in him."

"He's the only thing I've ever _had_ faith in!"

"I see," Morgana said, but her face softened. "Merlin. It wasn't so long ago that you were wandering the world, retracing old steps, wondering if you were going mad. Is that what you want for Arthur? The spell doesn't last. You know that."

Merlin didn't want to cry in front of her, but he couldn't stop the tear. He dashed it away, angrily.

"I do understand, you know," Morgana added. "I didn't back then."

"What?"

"I want you to be happy, Merlin."

Merlin laughed. "Right. So you can move on to the next adventure and stop doing penance by minding me."

"Yes, there is that. But I want you to be happy. I wanted that even when you were lying to my face. Sending me to the Druids when just a few words from you might have changed everything."

Merlin just shook his head.

"It was a long time before I wanted you to be happy after that. And I want Arthur to be happy, and for some reason, his happiness depends on you."

"He has me."

"He deserves better than secrets. Even those kept for his own sake."

 

* * *

 

"So, feel up for a film this weekend? We could see _the Sorcerer's Apprentice_," Arthur asked Merlin over dinner that night. "It sounds fun."

"What? Oh, no. Sorry. I...uh, have to go to Wales."

"To Wales?" Arthur's fork suspended in front of his mouth, like Merlin had just announced he was going to the moon.

"Yeah. It's a country within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, west of here..."

Arthur cut him off. "I know where Wales is."

They ate in silence for a while, until Arthur asked, "so, what's in Wales? You haven't mentioned it before."

"Oh. Um, something for the article. A finishing touch I missed on my first trip there."

"Nearly finished then? Do I get to read it?" Arthur said. He seemed fascinated by his pasta.

"Yeah, just about, and maybe after my editor gives me his comments. Right now it's still a bit of a mess."

"Want some company?"

"What? Oh, no, that's okay." Merlin didn't have the first clue how to explain his trip to Arthur, and he could see Arthur wasn't pleased with his reticence.

Arthur narrowed his eyes, and started to say something but clearly thought the better of it. "Fine."

"I mean, it's not that...it's just going to be a really short, boring trip, Arthur. A visit to a library, and a couple interviews at Caerleon and Carmarthen."

"It would be less boring if you had someone with you, wouldn't?"

"If there's anyone who could make it more entertaining, it would certainly be you," Merlin said. "But I should go alone. I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone."

"I doubt that," Arthur said. "More wine?"

Merlin held out his glass, and tried to ignore the hurt expression on Arthur's face, and the awful way lying to Arthur made him feel.

* * *

 

The lake wasn't actually in Wales, but Arthur didn't need to know that.

Outside of Glastonbury, Merlin stopped his car to stare at the landscape. It had been so long since he followed this path there, and that had been on horse, not car. His bearings were all off, until finally he closed his eyes and let his magic guide him. It cooperated.

He found it near a lay-by, of all places, a shimmering curtain seeming to hide it from most eyes. But not Merlin's.

He felt the moment he passed under the repelling spell, as the scenery around him seemed to change before his eyes. The hills grew taller, the valleys steeper, and there, there in the distance was a lake, a ruined isle sitting in its centre.

It looked exactly the same.

Merlin looked down at himself, half convinced that he would be back in roughly made clothing, a scarf around his neck and buckled boots on his feet. But no, it was still jeans and a fleece.

He found the boat tethered to the weathered boards of the little dock. Time hadn't managed to rot any of it— the dock, the boat, the bell were all the same.

Merlin stepped into the little boat and looked around. Calling on his innate magic didn't seem to work.

Merlin held out a shaking hand.

"_Āstyrian_," he whispered, and it worked. _It worked_. The boat began sliding quietly toward the island and its ruins, cutting through the leaves that floated in the water until the boat stopped suddenly at the rough stone doorway.

"Hello?" he called out, and even though he knew she wasn't there, he was still unnerved by the silence that greeted him. He'd thought another priestess, or a warlock, even a Druid would have taken up Nimueh's place on the Isle, but there was no one to answer his greeting.

Merlin paced around the crumbled fortress. It was shrouded, as ever, in some sort of perpetual mist that made the grass glisten and the air smell of new growth and old must. The altar still rested in the centre of the courtyard. There, at its base, lay the Cup of Life, right where it had fallen during the thunderstorms Merlin summoned to kill Nimueh.

Merlin crouched down and reached out to touch it. He stopped short of making contact, though, and drew his hand back.

The cup should look different, but it gleamed as it did before, and the stones were still intact. Whatever magic had held this place in a sort of stasis, it had worked on the cup as well.

Merlin took a deep breath, and reached out to lift the cup from the ground.

It really shouldn't have been so easy. This cup had been sought for generations; it had formed the basis for entire new branches of their legends, had been conflated with the cup of Jesus Christ to make local legends more palatable for encroaching Christian dominance.

Yet here it was, tumbled carelessly at the base of an altar, its centuries of blessings of powerful sorcerers protecting it from the elements, perhaps, but not able to protect it from being entirely forgotten.

Until now, when it would be used for its original purpose again, thanks to a bloody dragon keyfob and a film from the 1980s that bloody massacred his own life story.

"It's absurd, isn't it?" Nimueh asked, suddenly appearing before him. She was back in her red, tattered dress. "How great destinies get mistaken and misshapen over time, so that instead of priestesses and warlocks and kings, we've become average people who just want to find love, get laid, and fade into obscurity?"

"Speak for yourself."

"He won't thank you for this," she called after Merlin.

Merlin ignored her. She may have made Arthur, but she never knew him.

 

* * *

 

He texted Arthur goodnight from the B&amp;B he booked himself into. Arthur didn't reply.

 

* * *

 

The Cup of Life sat on his kitchen table for four days, whilst Merlin just stared at it. Stared at it, even when he was submitting his article to Tom. Stared at it even as he reworked formulas by magic.

As far as Arthur knew, Merlin was still in Wales. He'd still not got a response to his text, and when he rung Arthur's mobile, it went straight to voicemail.

He didn't relish lying to Arthur, but what else could he do? Go to him with a crazy story about immortality and reincarnation, and hope that Arthur set aside his science and his Occam's Razor and actually believed it?

Or, did he keep lying to Arthur and let him spend days, months, years even, slowly believing he was going mad?

Or, did he accept the power of life and death and force the gods' hands with water, the most essential of compounds, and receive the reward he'd been waiting for a thousand years'?

It should have been a simple answer, but now that he was close to having everything he'd crossed oceans and continents to find, he found Morgana was right. He was afraid.

But he still kept water from the Cup in his rucksack, in the event he encountered a rare moment of courage.

 

* * *

 

He texted Arthur the next morning, when he was "back" from his trip to Wales. _can i come by after work?_

_yeah._ He'd actually answered this time. Merlin hoped it was a good sign.

Merlin looked down at his phone. That hadn't been a very enthusiastic text, but then, it was hard to tell tone based on a single word.

When he'd arrived, Arthur had buzzed him in. His knock was answered with a loud bellow to let himself in.

"Arthur?" Merlin asked. "Where are you?"

"Kitchen," came the reply.

Merlin walked into the kitchen, where Arthur was slouching in a chair. On the table beside him was their bottle of Ardbeg, and a half-full tumbler.

"Hey," Merlin said. "You all right?" he leaned over to press a quick kiss to Arthur's lips, and was stunned when Arthur turned his face away. He could smell the Scotch on Arthur's breath, strident.

"Don't," Arthur said.

"Arthur," Merlin said. "Are you drunk? What's wrong?"

"What's not wrong?"

"Is it your family? Excalibur?" Merlin was growing alarmed.

Arthur didn't answer, just gulped back the rest of the Scotch in his glass and poured another straight away.

"Arthur?" Merlin sat down at one of the other chairs. "You're worrying me."

Arthur laughed, without humour.

"You worried me too, you know, but I know there are dead spots in Wales' mobile network, so I didn't think much of it."

"Okay?"

"So...I rang that library looking for you. They said you'd been there weeks ago, and weren't expected there this week."

Merlin breathed in, sharp and loud. "Were you... checking up on me?"

"Yes, and apparently I need to. Caerleon wasn't expecting you either. You lied to me."

Merlin swallowed, hard.

"So who is he?"

"Who is who?" Merlin asked, stunned.

"Or is it a she?" Arthur continued as if Merlin hadn't spoken at all. "Or is it bigger than that?"

"What are you even talking about?"

Arthur didn't answer.

"Arthur. You're not making sense. Come on. Let's go into the lounge, and I'll make you some tea."

"I don't want tea," Arthur protested, as Merlin helped him settle down on the huge leather settee.

"I'll be right back," Merlin said, ignoring Arthur's protests.

In the kitchen, Merlin filled the kettle and searched for a teapot under the sink. Arthur was worrying him; Merlin hadn't realised how obvious his secret-keeping had been. He never had been. Always too wrapped up in your own angst, he scolded himself, but the voice in his head sounded eerily like Morgana.

When the kettle went off, Merlin filled the teapot, added the teabag, and was about to close the lid when his eyes fell on his green rucksack, on the floor next to his chair.

He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. The question was no longer academic.

Decision made, he drew out the bottle of water from the Cup of Life, and added some to the tea.

"White, with too much sugar," Merlin said with forced cheerfulness as he made his way into the lounge again. "Just as you like it."

Arthur took the mug and set it down on the coffee table without taking a sip.

"So," Arthur started again. "Why did you lie to me?"

Merlin sighed. "Arthur, really," he began, sitting down cross legged on the settee.

"Can't think of a good excuse for me this time? Did you think I was stupid, that I couldn't tell you were keeping something from me? Lied about taking my picture. Lied about tracking me down. Lied about your article, about studying chemistry. God, are you some sort of industrial spy? Who hired you?"

"Don't be silly—"

"I love you, and all you do is lie to me," Arthur said, and Merlin's throat seemed to close on its own.

"Arthur, you're drunk. Wait for me next time before you start on that stuff again, hey?" Merlin said, putting an arm around Arthur's shoulders, but Arthur just shrugged his arm off and stood unsteadily.

"I think you should go, Merlin."

"Go? Why?"

"I can't talk to you right now."

"Arthur, come on."

"No, Merlin. Go home, and think about whether you want to be with me or not."

"Of course I—"

"Get out."

"Arthur, here," Merlin said, lifting up the mug of tea and holding it out to Arthur again. "Drink your tea. It'll help."

"_Tea_ isn't going to help this, Merlin."

"Tea helps everything," Merlin joked, but he didn't smile. When Arthur refused the mug again, he set it back down on the table, heart sinking.

"I can't be around you right now," Arthur said, hands covering his face. "I just want to be alone with this Scotch and forget I was ever rude to an airline agent in Paris."

Arthur must have seen the stricken look Merlin knew was on his face, because he softened the slightest bit when he looked up. "I mean—"

It was too late, though. Merlin had to get out of there, at least for now. He couldn't do this, not so soon after finding him again. It wasn't fair. And it was his own fault. Nimueh was right. He wasn't satisfied with having part of Arthur. He'd never been, no matter how he had pretended.

Merlin nodded to himself, grabbed his rucksack and, and wordlessly started back down the hall to the door, blinking back tears.

"Merlin!" Arthur called after him. "Wait."

Merlin kept going.

Outside Arthur's door, he stopped to lean back against it, fighting back tears. As he headed to the lifts, he heard a loud thump, and the shattering of crockery as something hit Arthur's door from the inside. Probably the tea.

Maybe...maybe he'd been right all along. Maybe he was meant to be strong enough for the both of them this time. Their first lives had seen so much pain, so much tragedy. Maybe it _was_ selfish of him to want Arthur to remember it too, just so that Merlin didn't feel so alone.

Maybe it was enough to just have Arthur back, and he was meant to carry their history himself. Alone.

That is, if he still had Arthur at all?

 

* * *

 

Merlin didn't think he'd ever fall asleep that night, curled into a ball on the side of his bed, but he did.

 

> _  
> He lay on the dirt in a low-ceilinged cell, or at least he assumed it was the dirt. He couldn't see. It felt like dirt. He couldn't hear, either, and he assumed it had something to do with the collar that had been snapped around his neck by his captors. They could do things to him through its magic, even while it managed to block all of his own._

As they'd dragged him away from Camelot, they'd told him he'd been sold. That Arthur had learned his secret, had sold him like livestock to these men. Mercenaries, working for Cenred, and aided by Morgause.

Cenred had not been pleased to discover one of his subjects had helped Camelot conquer his kingdom, it seemed, and wanted revenge on Camelot. He would have it, and Arthur's own traitorous servant, the servant he _sold_, would be the means, they told him.

Merlin hadn't believed them, not at first. After the first week,though, he'd started to give up.

Time passed, sometimes slowly, sometimes not. He was mostly left alone. Sometimes the guards played with his collar, took away a sense or heightened one to painful levels, but mostly, he was left alone, in the dark and quiet, and he started to think he might go mad.

He fought back once, when he was led to a pool of brackish water and told to bathe because he was making things unpleasant for the other prisoners and needed to wash. That had earned him the whip. Cenred had wielded it himself, making filthy promises while he did, but he never followed through. At least there was that.

After that, they'd taunted him with the news that Uther had sent knights to Ealdor, to lay waste to the entire village. To imprison his mother in retribution for Merlin hiding in Uther's own household.

He didn't have the energy to even decide if he believed it or not.

More time passed; how much he couldn't be sure, until one day (or night? They were the same to Merlin, trapped here in this carved-out hole in a cave) the walls shook, and sounds seemed to vibrate through the air.

He could sense he wasn't alone, now, that someone else was in this small cell with him. They'd have to crawl; the ceiling was so low.

When warm hands reached for him, he'd flinched and shrunk back into the wall, but the hands were soothing, over his shoulders, his hair, his cheeks. When Merlin raised a hand to brush them away, he grasped a cool metal ring on the person's hand.

He'd known that ring anywhere. His suspicions were confirmed when he reached up and felt the etched edges of a gorget, felt the single pauldron over the right shoulder, then crept up to feel a scar behind the ear, from a wound Merlin himself had stitched up.

"Arthur?" he'd asked, and his throat had hurt after so much silence, but he couldn't hear any response.

He'd been gathered close, in strong arms then, and for a moment, he felt despair. He'd spoke without thinking. They were trying to fool him, to mess with his mind for the pleasure of seeing all his hope fade away a second time.

Kings were sadistic like that, Merlin knew.

"Arthur wouldn't hug me," he whispered, and he found himself in the gentlest of chokeholds, knuckles rubbing over the top of his head, and he felt all the tension in him dissolve. He didn't cry, though, just let Arthur manoeuvre him over his shoulder and carry him out into the cool air— it must have been night— and seat him before him on a horse. There was at least one other horse there. Maybe Leon, maybe Lancelot, someone who thought Merlin was worth the rescue.

Later, when they'd got the magical collar off, they tucked themselves away in an inn near the border. Arthur had ordered a tub of hot water and had made Merlin sit in it with a cup of wine whilst he ran a soapy cloth over every inch of Merlin's skin. Arthur was so careful around the fading marks on his back, and it was so relaxing that Merlin dropped his cup. Without thinking, he stopped it with magic.

Merlin met Arthur's widened eyes over the suspended cup, then let it fall into the bathwater. He felt the blood drain out of his face, and chided himself for being such a fool.

But Arthur hadn't done anything, just kept using the cloth over Merlin's skin. He'd dried him off, tugged a spare tunic over his head, and made him drink down the bowl of broth the inn keeper's wife had brought up before urging him to go to sleep. He'd all but tucked him in.

In the darkness, Merlin whispered, "Thank you."

In an instant, he heard Arthur leave his bed and sit down on Merlin's.

"Did you think I wouldn't come for you?" Leave it to Arthur to choose to be observant _now_.

Merlin didn't reply, just looked away in shame.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you, Merlin?" Arthur said, fiercely. "You're an idiot, and it's a wonder you're still alive."

Merlin felt the bed dip even more, and suddenly, Arthur was right there, lying beside him, and Merlin was once again wrapped up in Arthur's tight grip.

"You're an idiot. Don't ever lie to me again," Arthur said, and he sounded like a desperate man.

"Okay," Merlin whispered, and felt some of the chill finally start to fade. He felt Arthur's lips brush his forehead, soft and dry, and Merlin fell into an exhausted sleep.  


Merlin woke to pounding on his door, the remnants of his dream slipping away like bits of dust in the moonlight streaming through his blind. He sat up, dislodging Gaius in the process, and felt tears drying on his cheeks.

"Merlin!" Bang. Bang. "Merlin, open this door right now."

Arthur.

Merlin threw off his duvet and walked over to the door, his socks sliding against the lino.

Bang. Bang.

"Merlin!" Arthur sounded angry still.

Merlin threw open the door, and his heart clenched at the sight. He recognised the look on Arthur's face. It wasn't anger. It was pure misery, a combination of fear and regret and confusion and betrayal and—

Arthur leaned his head against the doorjamb, his arm raised over his head. He smelled like the rain that pouring down outside. There were drops of it in his eyelashes. At least Merlin hoped it was the rain, and not tears.

"Hi," Merlin said. He tried to smile, but Arthur only shook his head, tried to say something. He couldn't seem to find any words.

Merlin grew more alarmed. His fingers started to burn from being clenched so hard, and when he took Arthur's hand it was wrapped in gauze, with specks of red starting to bleed through.

"Arthur, what's wrong? What's happened?"

"It was the strangest thing. I threw the mug at the door when you left."

So Merlin had been right about that.

"I needed to throw something. I hated that there were secrets between us and things seemed to be going wrong and I couldn't... so I threw the cup of tea."

Merlin didn't reply.

"The thing about throwing things is, well, you need to sort out the broken pieces after."

Merlin held his breath, and inwardly urged Arthur to just get to the point.

So I cleaned it up, and there was tea and everywhere, all over my hands[.](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/1158.html) I cut my finger on a piece of the mug and so I put it in my mouth and... and... then there was blood, and screams and...you," He traced a finger down Merlin's cheek, just a ghost of a touch, and when Merlin finally looked in to Arthur's eyes, really looked at him, he saw it.

_Arthur knew._

"Am I losing my mind, Merlin?"

Merlin smiled, even as he felt his throat go tight with emotion at the way Arthur looked so confused, and lost. He took Arthur's other hand in both of his. "No. You're finding it." He gave a tight squeeze before pressing a kiss to the knuckles. "Sire."

Arthur shut his eyes at that, and Merlin knew then that those were no raindrops on Arthur's lashes.

"Come inside, Arthur," Merlin whispered. He ushered him in, not willing to have any more of this scene take place where anyone else could see, even at this ungodly hour. This moment was for them.

Once the door was shut, Arthur pulled Merlin to him, and they leaned entwined against the door. Rain was soaking into Merlin's pyjamas from Arthur's jacket, but he didn't care. Their mouths touched, simply resting against each other's, each breathing the other's air but making no move go any further. Just touching and breathing, exhaling a thousand years of separation.

"You're an idiot, Merlin," Arthur said, finally.

Merlin's laugh felt like pure joy bubbling out of him. "So you've often said."

"You're an idiot, and don't ever lie to me again."

His laugher turned into something like a sob in the early morning silence, and he hugged Arthur closer. "I think you'll find I only lie out of extreme necessity." At Arthur's raised eyebrow, he added, "most of the time."

"So," Arthur said. "How long?"

"How long since what?'

"How long have you been waiting for me?"

So like Arthur to get right to the point. Merlin pushed away from the wall and took Arthur's hand to lead him down the hall, toward the bedroom. Arthur clung to his hand like it was a lifeline, and Merlin supposed it was. "Depends on how you count."

"That's not very reassuring," Arthur said as they reached the bedroom.

"Does it matter? You're here now."

"Merlin."

Merlin sighed. "A long time, Arthur. Since...since Camlan. I managed to make myself forget sometimes, but mostly, yeah— since then."

Arthur sat down heavily on the side of the bed and let his head fall forward. "So long?" he whispered.

"Hey," Merlin said, moving to stand in front of him, to lift Arthur's chin with a single finger. "Look at me."

Arthur wrapped his arms around Merlin's waist and laid his cheek against Merlin's belly.

"I'd wait twice as long if I had to." Merlin ran his fingers through Arthur's hair and over his eyes and his cheeks, soothing him.

"I'm sorry," Arthur said, finally.

"There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I'm sorry for not trusting you."

"Well, I _was_ hiding something from you. You were right."

Arthur started to say something, then stopped himself on a chuckle. "I suppose you really couldn't have just told me."

"You'd have thought I was mental, and not let me anywhere near you. I couldn't risk that."

"I already think you're mental half the time, Merlin." Arthur smiled fondly. "I like you that way."

"You should have seen me when I was starting to remember. I was sure I was going mad."

"Wait," Arthur said. "I thought you've been alive this whole time?"

Merlin grimaced and lowered himself down to sit next to Arthur, although they didn't let go of each other. He told Arthur about the _ādīlegian_ spell, how he'd used it to escape the loneliness of his wait, how he'd gone over the world only to finally remember it all whilst knee-deep in a mud field in Camlan. How Morgana had, in her own way, looked after him when he finally remembered.

"So you didn't know it was me in Paris?" Arthur asked.

Merlin shook his head. "Nope. Just knew there was a fit bloke being an arse to a customer service agent."

Arthur shook his head in wonder. "I felt something then, though. Over the Scotch. I wrote it off as déjà vu."

"I knew, too. I wanted nothing more than for you to come into my room with me that night, you know."

"I could tell," Arthur said. "I almost did."

"I'm glad you didn't, though," Merlin said. "It was better when I knew who you were."

"Now we both know. What do you reckon it'll be like, now?" Arthur played with the button on Merlin's jeans.

"It'll be amazing, like it always is, and always was," Merlin whispered. "Even when you didn't remember, your body recognised mine. I could tell in how you touched me."

Arthur leaned in close, and pressed a line of kisses along Merlin's jaw. Merlin leaned back at Arthur's gentle push, and lay there while Arthur turned on the bedside lamp.

"I want to see if anything's changed," he teased. Just then, Gaius let out a loud meow from his spot on the windowsill, and Arthur narrowed his eyes.

"Your cat is called _Gaius_?"

Merlin laughed out loud. "It was probably just a subconscious memory. It's not actually him, you know."

"Even still, I'm not doing this in front of him." Arthur lifted up a protesting Gaius and dropped him outside the bedroom door before closing it with a definitive click. He turned back to Merlin.

"Right, now, where were we? I wanted to see if anything's changed."

Merlin let Arthur manoeuvre him as he liked, lifting up here and there as Arthur stripped him out of his clothes. He giggled when Arthur ran a finger lightly across his abdomen.

"This is new," Arthur said.

"Appendix scar. Guess not even immortality protects you from an appendicitis."

"That makes no sense, though," Arthur said, continuing his tour. "Hmm, what's this here?"

"Broke my sternum playing rugby."

"Ah. Still as athletically lacking as ever, then."

"Oi," Merlin said. He started a rant about how he was an excellent sportsman, thank you very much, but he was waylaid by Arthur lifting up to strip off his own shirt. They spent a long moment just looking at each other, until finally Merlin spoke again.

"So."

"So."

Neither one of them made a move. It was like they were both scared to break the moment.

"Do you remember the last time? Back then?" Merlin asked.

A shadow passed over Arthur's face. "I do."

"Like that," Merlin said. "Like we might never get to again, and we don't want to admit it."

Arthur covered Merlin's body with his own, and fucked him hard, and desperate at first, then more slowly. It was quiet, like talking would take too much away from it, and instead, all they could do was look at each other— just look, and remember, and let go.

"We will, though. Get to do this again, I mean," Arthur said, after their breathing had returned to normal, and they were spooned under Merlin's tartan duvet.

"For as long as we can," Merlin said with a sad smile. "But one day, this will all end, and we won't get another chance this time. This is it."

Arthur shook his head. "Kinda funny to think the Matter of Britain was our _dress rehearsal_."

"Mmm. Bigger stakes now. There's a whole planet that needs saving, not just a few little kingdoms."

"Christ."

Merlin rolled over to face Arthur, and soothed a hand over Arthur's thigh. It was quite a burden to bear. "Or maybe Morgana is wrong, and this is our reward, and the world-saving thing is just a bad habit you need to break."

"Liar," Arthur said, fond. "So you really think this is it? No more repeat cycle for us?"

Merlin sighed. "I don't think so. I think she's right. When you go this time, we all go. Me, Morgana, Morgause, Freya, Nimueh...all of us. Our magic, too."

"Magic will end?"

Merlin shook his head. "No, magic'll always endure. It's bigger than just us. There are tales of magical deeds out there that are so amazing that our little adventures look like teatime television. Even with all the world-saving and fictional incest."

"I've never heard them, though."

"Many haven't. Our story has tended to overshadow them. Story of the world, really."

Arthur swallowed hard. "Maybe that's why you got the assignment. So the magic of other lands could start to receive the attention they deserve."

Merlin looked at him strangely. "You think? Sort of a strange thing to saddle _me_ with."

Arthur waved. "Think about it, though. It's like...making up for the past. Restoring the balance of the world."

Merlin laughed out loud. "Who are you, and what have you done with Arthur Pendragon?"

"Which one?"

"Both of them!"

Arthur grinned. "It's still me. Magic is as incomprehensible to me as it ever was, but I know what it means and what it has cost. And I still say this is why you were chosen for this assignment. Help tell the stories that are rarely told."

"It will take more than an article in a stuffy magazine to do that, though," Merlin said with a groan. "Especially one as rubbish as mine."

"You could always write a book. Or, better, edit a collection of other peoples' books."

"A collection?"

"Sure. Do some more travelling. Go find some other legendary sorcerers who are living life incognito in other corners of the world. There must be some out there. Then laze about all day pouting at your computer, whilst I go off and save the world. It'll be like old times."

"Listen, you. That magic saved your arse _and_ the world more times that you can count."

Arthur's smile became gentler, more serious. "I know it did," he said, kissing Merlin's hand.

"So, a collection of books from all over the world? I wonder who would publish it?"

"Publish it yourself. Do some viral marketing, the works."

"Publishing costs money, Arthur."

Arthur hummed. "Shame you don't know anyone with a lot of money and an affection for sorcerers, then."

Merlin grinned. _An affection for sorcerers._ Uther was rolling over in his grave somewhere.

"Can you still do it?" Arthur asked.

"Magic?"

"Mmm."

"Yeah. More every day. In fact, I've sort of been working on something for you." Merlin got up, and, ignoring Arthur's protests, padded naked into the kitchen where several pieces of paper lay covered in formulae and scientific shorthand. He snatched them up and brought them back to the bedroom.

"I'd really rather we be fucking again right about now, but in lieu of that, here." Merlin pushed the papers at Arthur, who sat up in bed to look them over with increasingly wide eyes.

When he was done reading, Arthur looked at Merlin with his mouth agape. "But this is— Merlin! You fixed the Excalibur formula?"

Merlin grinned. "Better than the best minds at Harvard, MIT and Oxford, me."

"But how?"

Merlin took the papers from Arthur, and pushed him onto his back. "Oh, you know. With magic."

"With magic." Arthur's mouth kept working, but no more words came out.

"Yeah. I used to use magic to find answers before, too. Have books open to the pages I needed, have sums do themselves. This was only slightly more complicated than that."

"Slightly more complicated, he says. Unbelievable. Ten years I spent on that formula only to have it solved by a...a..._travel writer._"

Merlin glared down at Arthur. "Travel writer and badass Court Sorcerer, thank you."

Arthur burst out laughing. "Merlin, you and _badass_ will never belong in the same breath."

"Oh really?" Merlin held Arthur down with magic and began tickling him until Arthur was begging him to stop.

"I'll stop, but I think I deserve a reward, don't you?" Merlin said, breathing into Arthur's ear.

"A reward for what? Being an idiot?" Arthur howled as Merlin redoubled his efforts. He couldn't help himself. Arthur's skin was so warm and soft and he had the most undignified giggles ever.

"For saving your anti-royal backside, I think," Merlin corrected him. He finally took pity and let Arthur up.

"Very well," Arthur said with an affected sigh slightly ruined by his panting. "I'll try to come up with something suitable. In the meantime, though, you seem to have, ah, enjoyed that a bit." Arthur curled his hand around Merlin's half-hard cock and stroked lazily.

Indeed he had.

"Allow me to help you with that," Arthur whispered, sliding off the bed and onto his knees.

"I wouldn't dream of arguing with you, sire."

It was nearly dawn by the time they let go of each other long enough to drift into a semi-sleep.

"I'm calling you in tomorrow," Merlin mumbled, opening one eye to look at the clock. "Er, make that today."

"No argument from me. I already left early yesterday pretending to be ill so I could get drunk and wallow." Arthur yawned, and pulled Merlin's head into his shoulder. "Sleep now."

Merlin rubbed his cheek into the bend of Arthur's neck, enjoying the way Arthur pressed into it like a cat. "I missed you so much," he whispered as the room began to brighten with the rising sun.

He felt Arthur's arms tighten around him, and an answering kiss pressed to his temple. Arthur didn't say anything for a long time.

"You were the last person I thought of," he finally said. "When I fell. I felt them around me, knew Mordred was there, Morgana. You running toward me is the last thing I remember before I...died. And the first thing I remembered yesterday."

Merlin had to reach up to rub his eyes as they began to sting. Arthur pulled them away and thumbed away the tears.

"You'll be the last thing I think of in this life, too."

"I'm going with you this time," Merlin promised.

"I know." Arthur smiled into the sun streaming through the window. "This trip we take together."

Merlin didn't want to think about it now, not so soon after. He didn't know what the gods, or destiny, or even chance had in store for them once the planet was safer and the magic of the entire world better appreciated. Maybe they'd have five years. Maybe they'd get fifty. Either way, they'd make the most of the journey.


	4. Epilogue and Notes

**EPILOGUE**

 

> "Finally, for Arthur, who makes my life magical."
> 
> -Merlin Emrys, in the dedication of _The Magic of the World Itself_

~*~

The changes to the Excalibur formula worked, and not two years later, Excalibur was in advanced testing. The media were heralding the fulfilment of the promise it had shown. The best minds at MIT, Harvard, Oxford and many others to boot were practically grovelling at Arthur's feet.

For his contribution to saving the planet, Arthur followed up his TED fellowship and with a new honour— Knight of the British Empire. The Investiture was held just a few weeks before Arthur, Merlin and Gaius packed up for Brussels, where Arthur had accepted an appointment to the EU's Climate Change working group. He'd still be CEO of Excalibur, but Barbara, his lead scientist Amit, and the new COO he'd recruited would be able to handle the day-to-day workings of the company. Arthur had his sights set on policy now. Without a good policy environment, how could Excalibur be marketable?

Merlin had only the vaguest idea what that meant, but he had a feeling that a bunch of politicians and special interests were about to get schooled in the art of the round table.

Merlin was just looking forward to Belgium.

In a thousand years of travelling the world, Merlin couldn't remember ever having been to Brussels. But what could go wrong in a place renowned for beer, chips, and chocolate? And he was looking forward to a change of pace while he worked on his book. He'd already made Renu and Sean promise to visit, and Arthur had insisted Morgana come straight away.

"You can bring..._her_ if you must," he'd added. Morgause and Arthur had managed a passable _detente_, proving to Merlin that truly, reincarnation made for strange bedfellows. And Arthur and Morgana, well, he'd never seen Morgana more disarmed than when they'd visited the tarot shop after Arthur remembered. The reunion, full of forgiveness and tears, had even made Nimueh smile. A little.

Merlin accompanied Arthur and his family to the Investiture. It had been so surreal, seeing Arthur kneeling, being tapped by a sword, then rising a knight. If they'd only known.

Later, they'd had a party. Arthur's family, Barbara and the Excalibur staff, Arthur's football mates, Sean, Renu, Morgana, and Freya. Amadou was there, too, in town from Paris where he was teaching now; he and Merlin had stayed in touch one the article had finished.

Arthur's sister Louise brought Prince Harry to the party; it seemed they were back on again, and Arthur, while not royalty, could very well end up as a royal in-law.

"But I hate the monarchy," Arthur whinged. "I should have declined the knighthood in the first place."

"You'd never decline a knighthood," Morgana said with a toss of her hair. "Knight's code and all that tosh, remember?"

Arthur checked to make sure no one was looking, then stuck out his tongue at her.

"Gods, you two deserve each other," she groused, then snagged Freya to go over to chat with Arthur's footie friends, leaving Merlin and Arthur stood together exchanging grins.

After the toasts and the well wishes, they said goodbye to the guests and drove off toward the Thames. It was warm and sunny, so they'd sat together on their bench in Cleary Gardens, admiring the silver star and its red ribbon, and sharing the last of their bottle of 30-year old Ardbeg.

"Does it bother you?" Arthur asked. "I mean, without you, I'd never have got Excalibur to work, but here I am getting all the credit and the glory."

Merlin drained the last of his Scotch, then paused to consider. "Don't worry about it. You did most of the work, anyway," he said, weaving their fingers together.

"Besides, why break a thousand-year habit?"

Merlin didn't quite manage to duck away from the ensuing noogie.

END

[In case you missed the hidden links, here are all the easter eggs](http://plficeastereggs.livejournal.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS**
> 
>  
> 
> **Acknowledgements**
> 
> A heartfelt thank-you to the following people, without whom I could not have done this:
> 
>   
> 
>   * misswinterhill for beta skills, unflagging cheerleading, and general ego-boosting. Also, the hidden easter eggs were her idea.  
> 
>   * ems for the Brit-pick and the lovely encouragement.  
> 
>   * lilith, jess, kirusai, elanna, and piscaria for reading earlier drafts and offering valuable criticism, insights, and prodding.  
> 
>   * Gblvr for the artwork.  
> 
>   * Kim for the TIME cover.  
> 
>   * Everyone at paperpushers for their kind responses to the weekly snippets and check-ins.  
> 
>   * The mods of paperlegends for their hardwork and determination to have a Merlin big bang this year.  
> 
> 

> 
> Finally, thanks to all of you for reading this far, whether you enjoyed this story or found it not to your liking. ♥
> 
>  
> 
> **Author's Notes**
> 
> The title comes from the Frank Sinatra song.
> 
> I went a little fast and loose with various re-tellings of the Arthurian legends. I am by no means a scholar of Arthurian or medieval literature in general, but tried to incorporate little nods here and there.
> 
> The locations in this fic were chosen because I am familiar with them as an outsider/visitor/guest, and, in a few cases, a resident. I hope I have written about them in a way that shows my respect and appreciation for them; if I have failed, it is solely my fault and not a reflection on any of my betas, first readers, or artists.
> 
> Climate change is hotly debated and while I obviously have an opinion on it, I am not an expert and urge everyone to research it for themselves if interested.
> 
> Regardless of whether climate change, back luck, Mayan calendars, or God is behind various natural disasters, they still are devastating to local communities from Pakistan to Niger to Haiti to New Orleans to Australia. If you enjoyed this fic and have the means and inclination, please consider offering an in-country charity a little support. ♥
> 
> **Resources**
> 
> I relied on a lot of primary and secondary sources for things in this fic. I drew on personal experience for a lot of the travel: my notes, journals, photos, and such from my own travels. I filled in some additional details by talking to knowledgeable friends and coworkers, visiting tourist board, museum, and visitor websites, reading essays and travelogues of other peoples' experiences as visitors to these places, reading a number of books about comparative myth and legend, looking though my shelf of Lonely Planet guidebooks and phrasebooks, and on a couple of desperate occasions, ye olde Wikipedia. In the end, anything in here is just one person's experience and interpretation.
> 
> Old English spell words come from here: http://wandership.ca/projects/eow/
> 
> Translations for words used in this fic include:
> 
> _Hei matau_: fishhook, symbolizing the hook Maui made from the jaw of his mother to fish the North Island of New Zealand from the sea  
> _Aotearoa_: "Land of the long white cloud" aka New Zealand in Maori; post-colonial use  
> _Taonga Māori_: Maori cultural treasures  
> _Te Papa Tongarewa_: National Museum of New Zealand  
> _Fajr_: Dawn prayers in Islam  
> _Namaste_: Greeting used in India and Nepal  
> _Swami_: Hindu honorific; Mandlik is after someone from RL who taught me many things  
> _Vedas_: Vedic texts, or scriptures of ancient Hinduism  
> _Tantra_: A thread of Hinudism believed by some to be a Western construct. Use of ones' self to channel power to attain goals. Often misunderstood and associated entirely with sex in the West thanks to a throwaway interview by Sting in the 90s.   
> _Al-Burāq_: Muhammed's flying horse; he was said to have tied it to the Western Wall.  
> _Pays Dogon_: The Dogon country, in Mali  
> _Hogon_: the senior spiritual guide in Dogon communities.  
> _Desculpe. Não entendo Portugues_: (slightly incorrect as common for nonspeakers using a phrase book). Sorry, I don't understand Portugese.  
> _Dois reals, senhor_: 2 reals (currency), sir  
> _Não, obrigado_: No, thank you  
> _Mãe-de-Santo_: a female priest in Afro-Brazilian religions  
> _Pai-de-santo_: a male priest in Afro-Brazilian religions  
> _Yee naaldlooshii_: Dine/Navajo word for a person who can change shape into animals  
> _Caipirhinas_: A common cocktail in Brazil using liquor made from sugarcane juice, lime, sugar, ice and DELICIOUSNESS.   
> _Gecyðan him him gēardagas_: show him his past (literal)  
> _Āstyrian_: Move  
> _ādīlegian_: forget


End file.
